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GEORGE WASHINGTON 



GEORGE 
WASHINGTON 



BY 



ADA RUSSELL, MA. 



With Frontispiece in Color and 
Pour Black and White Illustrations 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1921, by 

Frederick A. Stokes Company 

Jll Rights Reserved. 



SEP 12 192/ 

0)CI.A622838 



Introduction 

Our story, which is a Httle that of the United 
States as well as a short history of the life of George 
Washington, begins in the fifteenth century with the 
great ancestor, Columbus, and with the great fif- 
teenth century movement which Columbus repre- 
sented — the Renaissance. 

'Renaissance,' as I suppose all of my readers will 
know, means literally, 'Re-birth,' and the rebirth 
which took place in Europe in the fifteenth century 
was the rebirth of civilisation after the centuries 
known to History as the 'Dark Ages' and the 'Middle 
Ages.' Our modern nations were all formed by tribes 
of barbarians who overran and destroyed the Roman 
Empire, although to all who came into contact with 
her, Rome gave traditions of arts and laws that they 
never wholly lost in their darkest days. Our barbar- 
ous ancestors absorbed all they could understand of 
her institutions and built up systems of law and 
government and religion, invented styles of archi- 
tecture and painting that became truly decorative, 
and developed popular literatures that we still 
treasure. 

What was chiefly lacking in this medieval civilisa- 
tion, for it became a distinct and mature civilisation, 
was breadth and freedom, the grace and repose of 
the classical world, the liberty and freshness of a wide 
outlook. The stained-glass windows of the Gothic 



Introduction 

cathedral are the best type of the medieval mind — 
it shut out with figures of great beauty the free 
spaces of the universe. It sought to enclose the mind 
in narrow bounds, and it stifled original thought and 
discovery. 

Another thing that came to an end with Rome was 
the idea of Democracy. The States of antiquity 
evolved an ideal of self-government that returned 
to the world with the Renaissance, although it did 
not begin to bear its full fruit until the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries. Greece (from whom Rome 
had taken up the torch of civilisation) had created in 
Athens the perfect Democratic State, and her think- 
ers, Aristotle and Plato, wove political theories that 
all scientific revolutionaries have pondered over ever 
since the Renaissance. She set up for imitation the 
perfect Republic. Rome never in real fact possessed 
a perfect Republic, but after Csesar overthrew her 
democratic institutions by crossing the Rubicon, she 
always looked back to them with a wistful reverence, 
and the heroic struggle of her aristocrats against 
Csesar helped to create in the minds of men and be- 
queath to History a noble, ideal Rome, mother of 
freemen. This ideal Rome men were to find again at 
the Renaissance and it was to have an incalculable 
influence on all later political movements. 

Politics, history, art, literature, geography, com- 
merce, discovery, were all changed in scope and out- 
look by this movement, which ended the Middle 
Ages and started the modern world. 

The means by which the great changes were 
worked were partly the capture of Constantinople 
by the Turks in 1453 and the consequent flight of 

vi 



Introduction 

Greek scholars from that famous old Greek city to 
havens of refuge in the West of Europe. Italy 
benefited first, and she was at that moment ripe for 
the new thought and knowledge, as already her liter- 
ary men, her Dante and Boccaccio, had soaked them- 
selves in all that was left of the Latin classics; and 
she received the Greek scholars in one of those waves 
of literary enthusiasm that leave a permanent mark 
on the thought of a nation. From Italy this enthu- 
siasm spread all over the world. 

For us the chief points of interest in this movement 
are the attention that was now paid to Greek geog- 
raphers, which led to the discovery of America; 
and the revival of interest in republican institutions 
which led to the foundation of the United States. 

When the movement of the Renaissance first began 
to spread over Europe, the various nations of that 
continent were beginning to range themselves under 
strong monarchies, and the tendency was for those 
monarchies to become despotisms. These despotisms 
were a need of the times, as the alternative was 
anarchy and the thousand petty despotisms of the 
nobles. Thus we have the Tudor despotism in Eng- 
land and the Bourbon despotism in France, but 
already the nobles were reading Plutarch's lives of 
the famous Greeks and Romans and forming secret 
ideals of a State governed by aristocrats, like Rome 
in Cicero's time. The first-fruits of this were the 
'Fronde' in France and the rebellion against the 
Stuarts in Great Britain, which resulted before the 
end of the seventeenth century in the establishment 
of a Whig aristocratical Government not unlike that 
of the great Roman republic. In France in the seven- 

vii 



Introduction 

teenth century Louis XIV and Mazarin put an end 
to the Fronde and Louis could make with truth the 
famous assertion: 'The State? I am the State!' 
but before his death Plutarch's Lives had come out 
again, and the Memoirs of the heroes of the Fronde 
were to be found on great ladies' dressing-tables. 
Republican ideals were in the air at the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, and they were republican 
ideals drawn straight from classical antiquity. 
Political theories were to go on fermenting in France 
until the outbreak of the French Revolution at the 
close of the century, but, before the great French 
upheaval came, French and British ideas floating 
across the Atlantic were to give birth to that new 
nation, the United States. 

So we come to the eighteenth century, and with 
the eighteenth century we are in the midst of the 
flowering of all the republican ideas introduced by 
the Renaissance. At its beginning Louis XIV was 
still on the throne of France, but before it closes the 
Bastille will have fallen and the Americans in the 
name of the 'Rights of Man' will have signed the 
Declaration of Independence. 

The individualism introduced by the Renaissance 
influenced the sixteenth century, but in religion, not 
in politics. It produced the Reformation, and this 
had a very important effect on the politics of the 
future by setting a man's conscience above both 
Church and State. This was seen to the full in the 
seventeenth century, but that century produced only 
one eminent man who formed a really popular view 
of government, Hobbes, the author of the Leviathan, 
a book setting forth the theory that all government 

viii 



Introduction 

was derived from an original contract between sov- 
ereign and people for the benefit of the latter. The 
Leviathan appeared during the Commonwealth, and 
in the height of royalist reaction under the Stuart 
restoration it was considered a very wicked book, 
not fit for the good citizen to read. Hobbes' theory, 
however, was revived in the eighteenth century by 
Rousseau, the father of the French Revolution, in 
his Contrat Social, and was the basis of the American 
Declaration of Independence, 

Of all periods of history which can help us in our 
present political needs, the eighteenth century is the 
most useful, as the ideas and ideals which are to the 
fore in the life of the nations of the world to-day 
first sprang up then, in what we may call 'political 
quantities,' in our modern life. For the first time 
in modern history we get a full statement by two 
nations — ^America and France — of the idea of social 
and political equality, and men first began to 
criticise the 'Powers that Be' in a dangerous way. 
It was the beginning of the Age of tlie 'Rights of 
Man,' and we are not yet out of that age. Literary 
and intellectual people in France, Spain, Italy, 
England, Sweden, even Prussia and Russia, were 
not only busy creating Utopias, but were possessed 
with the longing to change the whole face of political 
life. Voltaire raised the first voice against the wars 
of political aggression that have always been the 
main fact of history, and his profound irony and 
polished epigrams were read with delight the whole 
world over by educated people. No amount of 
direct hard hitting could so have discredited the 
governments of his time when war was played by 

ix 



Introduction 

States like chess, for the amusement, satisfaction, 
and gain of noble families, and the common people 
were only looked on in the light of soldiers or servants, 
or 'pawns.' A new idea that came to the fore in 
the eighteenth century was that there were no 
common people. This idea, once it was born, acted 
like dynamite on social institutions. Voltaire wrote 
only for the literary classes, but Rousseau made 
the new idea a religion that appealed also to states- 
men and ordinary people, and Beaumarchais placed 
plays and operas on the stage — like the Marriage oj 
Figaro — telling the world at large that there is no 
more evil thing under the sun than *a great noble 
who is a wicked man.' The sole virtue of the typical 
nobleman was that he had given himself the trouble 
to be born — ^Vous vous Stes donn4 la feine de nattre, 
et rien de plus.* 

Most of you will have seen Beaumarchais' Marriage 
of Figaro as an opera, and j'^ou may have been told 
what Napoleon said of it — that it was the French 
Revolution in action. The author himself relates 
the outcry against it; it offended, his enemies said, 
'Religion, government, all ranks of society, and 
morality; virtue was oppressed and vice reigned 
triumphant.' You will probably have been sur- 
prised that a piece which seems to you so harmless 
should have created such an uproar, but it is one of 
the most important literary productions of the age, 
as it expressed so clearly the new dangerous doctrines. 
The theatre was guarded on the day of the represen- 
tation; society ladies, always the first in France under 
the 'Old Regime' to take up with new ideas, went 
early in the morning and sat patiently in their 



Introduction 

seats until the performance began; and at night 
people dispersed the guards, forced the doors, and 
broke down the wickets to get in. Its great doctrine, 
very skilfully clothed and disguised, is that noble 
birth does not make a man any better than his 
neighbours; and it further claims a certain private 
liberty of judgment for the common people. Beau- 
marchais had to explain away carefully a saying of 
Figaro about war: *Are we soldiers that we should 
kill and be killed for interests we are ignorant oiT 

The Declaration of Independence, which is the 
political creed of American democracy, contains the 
practical British war-cry of, *No taxation without 
representation,' and it also contains the intoxica- 
tion of the new gospel of eighteenth century France: 
'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!' Most people 
to-day think that equality is neither possible nor 
desirable; but Fraternity we hope that we shall have 
always with us, and no man can live without Lib- 
erty. Acting on these ideals, partly French and 
partly British, America carried out the first and 
most successful of attempts to 'make the world 
safe for democracy.' 



XI 



Contents 



CHAPTER , PAGE 

Introduction ......... v 

I. The Ancestors 1 

II. The Rebel's Childhood 10 

III. The Hero's Life Among the Redskins . 19 

IV. The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) . . 34 

V. Great Britain in the Eighteenth 

Century 43 

VI. Commander-in-Chief . 52 

; VII. The Siege of Boston (1775-1776) . . 64 

VIII. The Declaration of Independence (1776) 75 

IX. The War OF Independence (1776-1781) . 80 

X. First Citizen 95 

Sources 105 

Extracts from Washington's Writings . 107 



Illustrations 

George Washington Frontispiece 

Page 

Washington and His Mother 18 

Washington Praying at Valley Forge 62 

Washington Crossing the Delaware 84 

Washington Resigning His Commission at Annapolis, 
Dec. 23, 1783 90 



^ 



*'No calmative of sleep or sage 
Can cure the fever to be free!" 

(John Masefield) 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



CHAPTER I: The Ancestors 

BEFORE beginning our story of the eighteenth 
century and its great movements, which 
will centre in our hero George Washington, 
we must go briefly over the history of the 
rise and growth of the British colonies in North 
America, — to what President Wilson has called the 
'swarming of the English.' 

The thirteenth century A.D. saw the beginnings 
of that rich eastern commerce which was the dream 
and prize of the medieval merchant and made cities 
like Venice and Genoa so great and prosperous; but 
hardly had the riches of the Orient begun to pour 
into Europe than the growing power of the Turks 
made the land routes to Asia almost impracticable. 
However, the invention of the mariners' compass in 
the fourteenth century made long sea-voyages pos- 
sible, and the idea became stronger and stronger 
that Asia could be reached by sea. 

As only a few of the most enlightened people 
seriously entertained the notion that the earth was 
spherical in form, the first schemes were directed to 
the possible route round Africa, for although no one 
knew the extent of Africa to the south there was a 
very strong belief that it came to an end somewhere. 
Prince Henry 'the Navigator' of Portugal, there- 
fore, an illustrious prince whose knowledge and en- 
terprise raised Portugal to a leading position in the 

1 



George Washington 

scientific world, gathered together experienced mari- 
ners, founded a naval college and an observatory, 
and fitted out expeditions for exploring the African 
coast. 

All sailors with dreams of adventure and all sea- 
captains who desired to share in the profitable trade 
with Asia, wandered to Lisbon, and thither came 
among the rest the famous Genoese mariner, Christo- 
pher Columbus, the ancestor of American civilisation. 

Prince Henry the Navigator unfortunately never 
saw the reward of his toil and faith, dying in 1473, 
before the great discoveries, for not until 1487 did 
Bartholomew Diaz round the Cape of Good Hope, 
and so find the long4ioped for path to Asia by the 
eastern seas, and not until 1492 did Columbus set 
sail for the West. 

Columbus had no idea of following in the steps 
of the Portuguese pioneers. Devoted all his life to 
the study of geography, in the intervals of his sea- 
faring he read ancient Greek geographical writers 
and became inspired with the belief that to him 
Providence had reserved the greatest of all geo- 
graphical discoveries, the proof of the sphericity of 
the globe; and if the earth were indeed spherical in 
shape he believed that by sailing west he must 
necessarily reach Asia, for that another great conti- 
nent lay between Europe and Asia did not even enter 
his head. Now that Prince Henry was dead he could 
expect no help from the Portuguese sovereign, and 
he tried in turn all the kings of Europe, and at last 
obtained the assistance of the Spanish crown. He 
set sail therefore on 3d August, 1492, and on 
11th October landed on the Bahamas, which he 



The Ancestors 

named the West Indies. His discovery aroused 
eager enthusiasm in Spain, which was not slow to 
follow up her fortunate enterprise, and within 
twenty-seven years from his first departure from 
Spain the eastern shores of South and Central Amer- 
ica had been explored by Spaniards, nearly to the 
southern tip of the continent. 

Spain founded a mighty empire in Central and 
Southern America, and she was such a powerful 
nation that it seemed to all men a miracle when 
England was able to maintain her independence 
against her in the sixteenth century. It was indeed 
almost an impertinence for England to oppose her 
power, but from the time England became a Protes- 
tant country she hated Spain bitterly, and she re- 
sented her monopoly of the New World, whither 
English mariners were longing to sail treasure-himt- 
ing and adventure-seeking. A little crew of Bristol 
sailors planted the English flag in Newfoundland in 
1497, but there was no public interest in this colony, 
and Canada for the moment passed to the French, 
who also colonised Louisiana, to the south. It was 
necessary for England to make haste if she was to 
obtain any part in the rich heritage which had fallen 
so unexpectedly to the old countries of Europe. 

So one hundred years after Columbus attempted 
to put into execution his dreams, Frobisher set out 
on the same errand. He was followed by the famous 
unfortunate hero Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and to fight 
Spain and found American colonies was the twin 
ambition of all Elizabethan sailors. The soldier- 
poet Sir Walter Raleigh was haunted by these ambi- 
tions and he projected the plantation on the Atlantic 

3 



George TVashington 

seaboard which was called *Virgmia' after the Virgin 
Queen Elizabeth, and consolidated under James I. 
Virginia, the home of Washington and many another 
of America's future statesmen, was thus the first 
of the English colonies, and it always had different 
traditions from the States that were founded subse- 
quently. It had, strangely enough, no traditions of 
revolt, religious or political, and as it was afterward 
to lead the others in rebellion, so now it led them 
in politeness and the arts, in obedience to the 
Mother Country and the Established Church and 
Crown. 

Then came various instalments of religious refu- 
gees. When the Stuarts came to the throne of Eng- 
land in 1603 they found that bodies of all shades and 
shapes of religious opinion were hoping for their 
acceptance and support, and only waiting until stern 
Elizabeth, who suppressed both Roman Catholics 
and Non-conformists, should have died. To their 
dismay, James I continued the policy of Queen 
Elizabeth. He had learned in Scotland to dislike the 
Presbyterians, who had little respect for royalty — 
they called him *God's silly vassal' — and he used 
to say 'No bishop, no King.' So when the Pilgrim 
Fathers, who had fled from the Elizabethan regime 
to Holland, found that conditions were not improved 
under James, they set sail in the 'Mayflower' for 
the New World. 'Y/e are well weaned from the deli- 
cate milk of the mother country,' wrote one of their 
ministers, *and inured to the difficulties of a strange 
land. The people are industrious and frugal. We 
are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant 
of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great 

4 



The Ancestors 

conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves 
strictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the 
whole.' They landed in 1620 on the coast of Massa- 
chusetts, and soon the colonies of Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, and later 
New Hampshire and Maine, represented 'New 
England.' As the Lincolnshire Boston had helped to 
fit out one of these Puritan emigrations, the name of 
Boston was given to that famous New England town, 
the capital of Massachusetts. 

James I disliked the Roman Catholics less than 
the Puritans, and so he very readily granted to a 
Catholic nobleman. Lord Baltimore, the permission 
to found a Roman Catholic colony in America. 
Charles I granted it a royal charter and it was in- 
corporated under the name of Maryland, after Queen 
Henrietta Maria. Here religious liberty first flour- 
ished, for in English colonies Roman Catholics dared 
not persecute Protestants, and the State religion 
being Roman Catholic, Protestants could not perse- 
cute Roman Catholics. 

You will all have heard of the *Laudian persecu- 
tion' in the Church of England at home. Under 
the influence of Laud and with the approbation of 
Charles I, the Church of England drew immeasurably 
away from Puritanism. Ritual and ceremony, moot 
points for so long after the Reformation and through- 
out the sixteenth century, were enforced rigorously, 
and Puritan usages, including the strict observance 
of the Sabbath Day and the marriage of priests, were 
discouraged. The immediate consequence was the 
emigration of thousands of Puritans to the New 
World. 



George Washington 

Thus, long before the new ideas of Liberty, Equal- 
ity and Fraternity came over to America from 
France, there was a set of colonies founded by people 
who had given up home and kith and kin for the sake 
of freedom of faith, people who were willing to give 
up life itself for their idea of duty and what they 
conceived were their rights. 

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the 
English colonies were added to by the Dutch wars. 
Between INIaryland and New England there was a 
Swedish colony which subsequently became Dutch, 
with a capital— New Amsterdam. By the treaty 
with Holland which Charles II made, this colony 
was handed over to Britain and New Amsterdam 
received the title of the King's brother, the Duke of 
York, being called New York. Delaware was ceded 
by the Dutch at the same time, and Britain also 
made good her claim to the small colony of New 
Jersey. New York, like Virginia, had no peculiar 
religious traditions, and her history, hke that of 
Virginia, always shows this. 

A further Puritan colony was that of Pennsylvania, 
founded by William Penn especially for Quakers 
(but granting religious toleration to all), under 
James II; and in the same reign the colony of Caro- 
lina, called after Charles II, who had granted its 
charter, was established to the South of Virginia. 
Carolina obtained its population chiefly from emi- 
grations from Ireland of Ulster men, aud to these 
emigrations the population of Georgia, to the west, 
was also chiefly due; and so two States sprang up 
in the South quite different from the Virginian type, 
now the old aristocracy of the colonies. 

6 



The Ancestors 

These colonies thus came to occupy a large, com- 
pact stretch of territory on the Atlantic coast, 
stretching for over 1,000 miles between Spanish 
Florida on the South and French Canada on the 
North. They prospered in the most marvellous 
fashion, and in the middle of the century following 
that of their formation Burke said they seemed to 
him: 

'Rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of 
fortunate events and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth 
in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday; than a set of miser- 
able outcasts, a few years ago, not so much sent as throwTi out en the 
bleak and desert shore of a barren wilderness, three thousand miles 
from all civilised intercourse.' 

Talking of one Lord Bathurst, he was, says Burke, in 1704 of an age 
to be made to comprehend such things, and 'Suppose . . . that the 
angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made 
him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate men of 
his age, had opened to him in vision that when, in the foiuth generation, 
the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the 
throne of that nation, which . . . was to be made Great Britain, he 
should see his son. Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current 
of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of 
peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one. If amidst these 
bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, that angel 
should have drawn up the curtain and unfolded the rising glories of 
his country and, whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then 
commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a 
little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest . . . and 
should tell him: "Young man, there is America," which at this day 
serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and 
uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal 
to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the 
world!' 

In the warm regions of the South, cotton and 
tobacco were grown, largely by slave labour. These, 
by the 'Navigation Laws,' might only be exported 
to British possessions and constituted the chief 

7 



George JVashington 

part of the commercial riches of Britain. The raw 
cotton exported to Lancashire inaugurated the com- 
mercial greatness of that county and so exercised 
an important influence on English hfe then and ever 
afterward. To work the tobacco and cotton plan- 
tations of the South, slaves were imported in large 
numbers and a slave trade, common to both North 
and South, developed and became almost a rival 
to tobacco and cotton as a mercantile item. The 
new ideas of the rights of man made people examine 
their consciences, and a very strong minority began 
to look upon slavery as a social evil; but profit and 
conscience had a hard struggle and for a long time 
profit won the day. Carrying slaves and the prod- 
ucts of the Southern plantations, a brisk transport 
business sprang up in New England, but for the most 
part agriculture and cattle-rearing were the staple 
industries of the Northern colonies. 

Each colony was governed after the fashion at 
Home, by three Estates — Governor, representing 
the King; senators; and a popular element in the 
House of Burgesses. Where the Governor, as often 
happened, had great ideas of the royal prerogative 
and his own dignity, he often, before there was any 
idea of revolt from England at large, got across 
the House of Burgesses and even the local Senates. 
The Board of Trade at Home received by almost 
every mail from some of the colonies reams of com- 
plaints by the Governor of the impertinence to which 
he was subjected and reams of representations from 
the colonists against the conduct of the Governor. 
It is impossible not to feel on reading these papers, 
still unpublished in the archives of the Public 

8 



The Ancestors 

Record office, that, long before the American Revo- 
lution, American Pyms and Hampdens were collect- 
ing their arguments, polishing their grievances and 
fretting at their subjection to institutions entirely 
alien to their inherent tastes and trend of mind. 

As a social institution, the Governor was well- 
liked in an aristocratic State like Virginia, where 
social life in the eighteenth century resembled very 
much that of England at the same period. He made 
a centre for polite life, and his position made a 
hierarchy of social precedence possible. The car- 
riages of the local gentry, like the Lees and Wash- 
ingtbns, with liveried servants in the English man- 
ner, would drive into Williamsburg or Annapolis 
(in Maryland) of a winter evening, and ladies in 
enormous crinolines and tower-like head-dresses 
would step out on to the red carpet and trip up the 
steps of big houses under an awning, while the sounds 
of a gay band would issue; and the gentlemen in 
knee-breeches, silken hose, silver-buckled shoon, 
gaily coloured coats, frilled ruffles and powdered 
wigs, would hand them out of their carriages and 
lead them to the ballroom and dance with them 
the stately minuet, even as their brothers and cousins 
at Home were doing in London, Bath or Wells. 

But there was very little of such aristocratic life 
in the colonies. Indeed, it was confined to the big 
planter colonies and to large towns like New York. 
Elsewhere, the Governor conflicted with popular 
institutions and tastes, as representative of class 
distinctions and privileges of birth and rank that 
the New World was already conscious of a wish to 
abolish. 



CHAPTER II: TheRebeVsChild^ 
hood 

GEORGE WASHINGTON was descended 
from an old planter family of Virginia, who 
had left England under the Commonwealth, 
and so had the reverse of republican an- 
cestry. His ancestors indeed departed from the 
Old Country a few years after the execution of 
Charles I, full of sorrow and indignation at that act. 
They belonged to an old English family, undis- 
tinguished on the whole, but occasionally producing 
some notable person. Their chief seat was at Sul- 
grave in Northamptonshire, where stained glass 
and a few ancient brasses still preserve their name 
and arms. Sir Henry Washington fought for Charles 
I in the Civil War and showed some of the qualities 
of soldier and ruler that George afterward possessed. 
The Washingtons found England neither a safe nor 
pleasant place under the Puritan Commonwealth, 
and set sail in 1657 for Virginia, the loyal Church of 
England colony, where they could preserve in safety 
their loyalty and their religion. John and Lawrence, 
the uncles of Sir Henry, were the founders. They 
purchased lands on the west bank of the Potomac 
River, built a house there, and continued to live, 
so far as changed conditions permitted it, the life 
of English country gentlemen. The elder of the two 

10 ', 



The ReheVs Childhood 

brothers. Colonel John Washington, great-grand- 
father of George, stands out as a wealthy planter 
and pioneer in Indian warfare, for in the border 
States Indian warfare was a constant feature. He 
removed the seat of his family to Bridges Creek, a 
short distance from the Potomac. His elder son 
Lawrence had three children — among them Augus- 
tine, father of George. Augustine was twice married 
and had a good many children, of whom George was 
the eldest by the second wife. 

George Washington, the future President of the 
United States, was born on the 22d February, 
1732, at Bridges Creek in the house built by his great- 
grandfather. Colonel John Washington, of which not 
a stone remains to-day. A simple inscription only 
tells that it was the birthplace of Washington. 

When he was about five years old his family left 
this house for another at the banks of the Rappahan- 
nock, a mighty river neighbouring Indian territory 
and hitherto navigated chiefly by the Indian's light 
canoe. It was bordered by primeval forests and 
represented the boundary of British civilisation as 
extended by the Washingtons and other big planters. 
Here Washington grew up and learned gradually to 
manage estates and deal prudently with a vast 
overseas commerce, for his family like their fellow 
planters shipped their own goods to Great Britain 
without the help of the shipping agencies. Here he 
studied the social and political life of his colony and 
took his part in its festivities, learning to ride, fish, 
hunt, and to protect himself against Indians. Part 
of his training was how to tame exuberant nature, and 
another part, and not the least important, was to 

11 



George Washington 

face the bravest and most skilful foes the white man 
has ever met in his wanderings — the Redskins. 
In the border colonies there was a continual danger 
of Indian raids, of villages and farms being set on 
fire and the inhabitants scalped. 

George played at Redskins at a period when they 
were still prowling round the White Man's settle- 
ments and stalking him, and in his teens he sat in 
their tents and watched their war-dances and heard 
their grim songs. When he was very small he 
played at soldiers, having a set of toy grenadiers, and 
he would assemble the negro children on his father's 
plantation and drill them lilce a martinet. He 
never dreamed of any other career for himself than 
that of a soldier. 

His half-brother Lawrence, eldest son and heir, 
was sent to England to be educated. Having re- 
ceived the best instruction 'Home' (as the colonists 
still called the Old Country) could give, he returned 
to America to receive a commission as captain in 
His Britannic Majesty's Army, and served with dis- 
tinction mider Admiral Vernon against Spain. The 
excitement of George knew no bounds when he heard 
of his brother's doings and promotion. 

Being a younger son, he was not sent to the Old 
Country for his education. However, he learned 
* what's what' from Lawrence, who took great pains 
with him, and carefully observed the manners and 
ways of the English gentlemen and distinguished 
colonials he met from time to time. Lord Fairfax, 
a typical eighteenth century English gentleman, a 
great sportsman and yet a patron of the arts — even 
himself a contributor to that quintessence of intel- 

12 



The RebeVs Childhood 

lectual England, 'The Spectator' — had wide estates 
in these parts and was on the most intimate terms 
with the Washingtons. It was astonishing, how- 
ever, how little Americans really learned from 
eighteenth century England. They picked up her 
amusements and fashions m dress and furniture, but 
they were almost proof against her intellectual 
outlook at that time. The eighteenth century is 
one on which Britons may well look back with 
pride in almost every direction. England had built 
up a great commercial empire; she had established 
what for the time was a model system of govern- 
ment at home ; and she had a constellation of famous 
literary men whose works are still among the chief 
treasures of the race. But the literature produced 
at that time dealt largely in epigram and irony and 
could only have been produced and appreciated by 
a highly artificial society. It was full of humour 
and scholarship, and sparkled with wit, but it 
seemed to Americans to be too far removed from 
life. It incited to no high ideals or noble conduct; 
it made little appeal to the passions; it had no 'heart.' 
There was therefore between Great Britain and her 
colonies no intellectual bond which should endear 
her to them. Literary sympathy is often the best 
conductor of liking between nation and nation, and 
this literary sympathy in that age America found 
more in France than u\. England. 

For good or for evil, George Washington never had 
the slightest touch of the literary spirit of eighteenth 
century England, and there is nothing to make us 
suppose that he had the slightest sense of humour. 
His character was formed to greater issues, and he 

13 



George Washington 

was perhaps fortunate in escaping from the cynical, 
ironical spirit that nearly became a plague in 
eighteenth century life at Home. In all other 
respects he grew up to the height of the age as a per- 
fect gentleman, wise, sensible, straightforward, mag- 
nanimous, courteous, charitable, obstinate, patient, 
strong in every way; and the wonderful thing about 
him is that he showed most of these qualities almost 
as soon as he could speak. He was tall and hand- 
some; he excelled every other boy in all manly 
games; and a place is still shown where he threw a 
stone across the Rappahannock at the lower ferry; 
he ran like a deer, he leapt like a cat; he could tame 
a wild horse like Alexander, and wrestle without a 
peer. His parents took more than ordinary pains 
that their children should be straightforward, 
truthful and religious. 

Among many famous stories of George and his 
father, the only one I can be sure that every reader 
will have heard of is that of the Lie, and as none of 
you like this story — because nice people do not 
generally say that they 'cannot tell a lie' — I am 
glad to be able to tell you that it is almost certainly 
false. Tlie beautiful English cherry-tree spoiled by 
the toy hatchet has gone with the little boy who 
could not tell a lie to the land where nearly every 
other tale of Washington's childhood has fled. 
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was never 
a very truthful tale itself. The Hatchet of History 
has been applied mercilessly to the fertile legend of 
Washington's childhood and has left us literally 
nothing in the way of anecdote. 

When he was five years old he was sent to the 

14 



The RebeVs Childhood 

school of the village sexton, one Hobby, although 
his father remarked that 'a bright boy will run 
Hobby dry in two or three years'; and although 
Hobby might claim in later years to have laid the 
foundations of Washington's greatness, it is plain 
that the boy learned at home what was most valuable 
to him — the Scriptures, stories of history, and the 
description of other countries. He had little of the 
scholar in his disposition, and through lack of 
opportunity he never learned any foreign tongue, 
not even French. Legend says that both in the 
school and in the playground he was a model boy. 

From Hobby's hands he passed to the school of 
one Mr. Williams, the best teacher to be found in 
Virginia, and went in especially for the study of 
arithmetic, book-keeping and surveying, as it was 
thought that these subjects would be most useful to 
him as a planter. 

At thirteen he was already a man in stature and 
maturity of character, and had already drawn up 
sets of legal and commercial forms that he thought 
would be useful to him. His experience in making 
this 'Book of Forms,' still preserved, *gave him,' 
says his biographer, Washington Irving, 'throughout 
life a lawyer's skill in draughting documents, and a 
merchant's exactness in keeping accounts; so that all 
the concerns of his various estates, his dealings with 
his domestic stewards and foreign agents, his ac- 
counts with Governments, and all the financial 
transactions to this day are to be seen posted up in 
books, in his own handwriting, monuments of his 
method and unvaried accuracy.' He mapped and 
measured the farms near the school as if he were a 

15 



George JVashington 

professional surveyor. He also wrote out *Rules of 
Behaviour in Company and Conversation' — 110 of 
them — such as: 

'Sleep not when others speak; sit not when others stand; speak not 
when you should hold your peace; walk not when others stop.' 

'Break not a jest where none take pleasure in mirth; laugh not aloud 
nor at all without occasion; deride no man's misfortune, though there 
seem to be some cause.' 

'Speak not injurious words, neither in jest nor earnest; scofif at none, 
although they give occasion.' 

'Detract not from others, neither be excessive in commending.' 

'Give not advice^without being asked; and when desired do it briefly.' 

'Reprehend not the imperfections of othei's; for that belongs to 
parents, masters and superiors.' 

'Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof.' 

George must have framed these rules on his 
reading, not on his experience, but the older mem- 
bers of his family agreed that if any one living were 
capable of carrying them out it was he. 

His kind, wise father died shortly before George 
went to Mr. Williams' school. He was overcome 
with the most passionate sorrow, for he 'thought the 
world of his father,' it was said, 'and his father 
thought the world of him.' Lawrence married one 
of the Fairfax girls very shortly afterward, and 
settled on an estate nearby, bequeathed him by 
his father, calling it after his favourite admiral, 
by the now famous name of Mount Vernon, to be 
associated in later days with his famous brother. 
George soon spent all his spare time and holidays 
here. The estate on the Rappahannock was settled 
on him. 

George was not quite sixteen when he left school 
for good, and he was already in the throes of his 

16 



The RebePs Childhood 

first love affair, of which the object was a lady 
identified by tradition with the future mother of 
General Henry Lee, one of the heroes of the Revo- 
lution. Perhaps he was influenced, as he was very 
much in everything, by the marriage of Lawrence; 
anyway he wrote verses to the Lady of his Thoughts, 
and was very unhappy for an unusually long time. 
It is an episode without a fellow in a life that was to 
be romantic indeed, but in a bigger way. 

At Mount Vernon, where he met many officers, 
George, strongly encouraged by Lawrence, once 
turned his thoughts to the British Navy; a midship- 
man's warrant was obtained for him and his trunk 
actually put aboard the man-of-war in the Potomac, 
when his mother repented and begged him to stay 
with her. After a sharp struggle, George consented 
to do so, and so the big man-of-war sailed away 
with his first ambition as the unknown fair lady 
sailed away with his first love. Not in vain had his 
parents taught him obedience and quoted often the 
grim text: 

'The eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother, 
the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat 
it.' 

Washington's mother, unlike his father, lived to 
see the harvest of the virtues she had so carefully 
planted, and in the coming days of the American 
Republic *the mother of Washington' enjoyed a re- 
nown not unlike that of the 'Mother of the Gracchi' 
under the Roman Republic of old. To the end of 
her days she maintained her authority over children 
and household; George still obeyed her when he 
became President of the United States, and a re- 

17 



George Washington 

lation wrote of the times when the children were 
young: 

'Of the mother I was ten times more afraid than I ever was of my own 
parents. She awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was, indeed, 
truly kind. I have often been present with her sons, proper, tall fellows, 
too, and we were all as mute as mice; and even now, when time has 
whitened my locks, and I am grandparent of a second generation, I 
could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible 
to describe. WTioever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner so 
characteristic in the Father of his Country, will remember the matron 
as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, 
commanding and being obeyed.' 



18 



CHAPTER III: The Hero's Life 
Among the Redskins 

WHEN George, not quite sixteen years of 
age, left school, he went to Hve at Mount 
Vernon with Lawrence, already a man of 
influence and importance, a member of 
the House of Burgesses of Virginia and Adjutant 
General of his district. At Belvoir, not far away, 
he met the Fairfaxes and became a constant com- 
panion of Lord Fairfax in his hunting. Their friend- 
ship led to the engagement of George to survey Lord 
Fairfax's estate and many consequent adventures 
which all helped to train the young man in hardihood 
and judgment. 

On horseback, with a hunting-knife and toma- 
hawk in his belt, he set out with one of the Fairfaxes 
and a few servants on a surveying expedition. 
Sometimes they bivouacked at some Indian campfire, 
and they depended for food on what they shot or 
caught — wild turkey or other game — cooking it on 
forked sticks and eating it off pieces of wood they 
found suitable for plates. Sometimes they came at 
night to a squatter's hut. A letter from George to a 
friend says: 'Since you received my last letter I have 
not slept above three or four nights in a bed, but 
after walking a good deal all day I have lain down 
before the fire upon a little straw, hay, fodder or a 

19 



George Washington 

bear-skin — whichsoever was to be had — with man, 
wife and children, Hke dogs and cats; and happy is 
he who gets the berth nearest the fire. I have 
never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in 
them, except the few nights I have been in Freder- 
icksburg.' For the first time he saw Indian settle- 
ments and wigwams and war-dances and heard 
their war-whoops. Sometimes they found the set- 
tler's hut too filthy to sleep in; and at the house of 
one 'Solomon Hedge, Esq., J. P.,' where they supped, 
they were given neither knife nor fork to eat with. 

However, this wonderful boy of sixteen was not 
playing at Boy Scouts; he was professionally en- 
gaged to survey a part of Lord Fairfax's estate, and 
he carried out his job with thoroughness and success. 
As a result of his report on the attractiveness of a 
site, Lord Fairfax shortly afterward moved across 
the Blue Ridge and established himself in a manor- 
house he called Greenaway Court, a delightful 
house of the best eighteenth century type and hence- 
forth a centre of social life in Virginia. Here, it is 
said, George Washington first read the History of 
England. 

George returned to Mount Vernon by the 12th 
April, 1748. Three years later he was appointed 
Public Surveyor, and in after years his surveys of 
land were referred to as though they were legal 
documents. It is obvious that this practice was 
the best experience possible for an Army officer who 
was to be called on to plan campaigns, understand 
routes and distances and have a profound knowledge 
of backwoodsmen and Indians. It is sad to recall 
that the subsequent career of Washington dealt a 

20 



Life Among the Redskins 

mortal blow to Lord Fairfax, the friend who had 
given him his first surveying commission. 

'Joe!' Lord Fairfax cried to his black servant 
when nearly thirty years later there came the news 
of the surrender pf Cornwallis and the whole English 
army, 'Carry me to my bed, for it is high time for me 
to die.' 

When George was nineteen years old, his brother 
Lawrence retired from the position of Adjutant 
General of his district and obtained the office for 
George, who received the rank of Major, with the 
duty of commanding the militia. Before taking up 
his new work, he accompanied Lawrence, who had de- 
veloped consumption, to spend the winter in the 
West Indies. The holiday failed to restore Law- 
rence to health, and George caught the small-pox; 
he recovered soeedily, but Lawrence only returned 
home to die — 26th July, 1752, aged thirty-four. He 
bequeathed the remainder of his estate, on the death 
of his little daughter, to George, and as the child 
soon died. Mount Vernon came into George's posses- 
sion and became his home. 

The next important event in his life was the out- 
break of war between England and France. W^e 
shall give a short account of this war — 'The Seven 
Years' War' — in the next chapter. It did not begin 
officially until 1756, but for a good many years be- 
fore that date a state of practical warfare existed, 
and W^ashington had his first taste of battle and made 
the first steps in his military career. 

Great Britain and France were, as they have 
nearly always been since their history began, on 
very ill terms with each other. They were never 

21 



George TVashington 

without subjects of quarrel, but their quarrels were 
taking an acuter turn than ever through their colo- 
nial possessions and their commercial rivalry. 

France was busily building strong fortresses which 
should connect her Canadian possessions in the 
north with her colony of Louisiana in the south of 
North America, and so confine the British colonists 
strictly to the seaboard. She had a traditional 
claim to the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio, 
founded on ancient explorations. In India, too, 
France and Great Britain were rivals, for through 
that clerk of genius, Clive, Great Britain had laid 
the foundations of her Indian Empire. 

While the French, without declaring war, sent 
expeditions to occupy the valleys of the Ohio and the 
Mississippi, and claimed all the country west of the 
Alleghany Mountains, the British formed an 'Ohio 
Company,' to dispute that valley with the French, 
and planned the invasion of Canada, where the great 
struggle was to be fought out. Both countries tried 
to get the Indians' aid, by means of bribery and 
diplomacy. Of the series of French forts toward the 
Mississippi, the chief were Fort Niagara, a fort at 
the Forks of the Ohio, called Fort Duquesne after 
the French Governor of Canada, and one at Ticon- 
deroga on Lake Champlain. The fighting in the 
Ohio district brought George Washington into the 
field. He had now attained his majority and was 
the head of his family, and in every way a man. In 
the preceding century Cond6 and Turenne in their 
twenties had led the armies of France to their great- 
est victories, and although Washington was far from 
having their precocious military genius, no one 

22 



Life Among the Redskins 

would have hesitated to entrust him with the 
command of an important expedition. In the 
coming war he played a prominent part and it was of 
incalculable value to him as an experience. To many 
of the American soldiers of the War of Independence, 
The Seven Years' War was their military school, 
and they could not have had a better one. 

The Ohio Company pleaded for help against the 
French, and Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, de- 
cided to send a memorial to French Headquarters on 
the Ohio to expostulate on their treatment of peaceful 
British traders. His choice of an envoy fell on 
George Washington, and Washington gladly accepted 
the dangerous errand. Taking with him traders who 
knew the routes, and interpreters who knew the 
French language, the young man set forth from 
Williamsburg in the late autumn of 1753 on a journey 
which snow and floods made extremely hazardous. 
On his way he attended Indian councils, exchanged 
strings of wampum with Indian chiefs, sought to un- 
derstand their politics and win them over to the 
British side. He arrived at the French fort on 11th 
December and on the following day presented his 
letter. While the French Commander affected to 
deliberate Washington took mental note of all he 
saw, and even succeeded in making a plan of the fort. 
He only obtained an evasive reply, but from his 
observations it was clear that the French meant to 
make a big attack in the following spring. He was 
in such haste to report to the Governor that he left 
his suite and baggage to follow and with one com- 
panion took what was reported to be a short cut on 
foot. His companion gloomily declared that there 

23 



George JVashington 

was not one chance in ten of arriving by such a route 
in such weather. A wandering Indian, who had 
been stealthily following them ever since they left 
the French fort, appeared at a moment when they 
were tired and footsore and offered to carry Wash- 
ington's pack. He accepted gladly, and the Indian 
beguiled them from their route and tried to murder 
them. Safely through this peril, they came to the 
Alleghany River, which they could not ford. They 
made a raft with the one hatchet they possessed; 
and from this in mid-stream Washington was violent- 
ly ejected by a collision with a flood of broken ice. 
They had to abandon the raft and swim to an island 
in the river, where they spent the night, exercising 
themselves the whole time so that they should not 
die of cold. Fortunately the river froze hard in the 
night and they were able to cross on the ice. It 
was a most unpleasant experience. At last, safe 
and sound once more at Williamsburg, Major Wash- 
ington handed to the Governor the French note and 
the belts of wampum given him by all the Indian 
chieftains with whom he had concluded alliances, 
and, not the least valuable, a Journal kept by him- 
self. This Journal was immediately published 
throughout England and America and made people 
in general aware that a great war was approaching 
and that they must be prepared. At 'Home' 
everyone clamoured for a declaration of war on 
France and sufficient enthusiasm was aroused in 
the colonies to permit the raising of a good many 
companies. Several were formed in Virginia and 
the command was offered to Washington, who was 
requested to lead an attack on the French on the 

24 



Life Among the Redskins 

Ohio. He refused. *It is not modesty,' he said, 
*but love for my country. It is a charge too great 
for my youth and inexperience to be trusted with.' 
He was therefore made Heut.-colonel under Colonel 
Joshua Fry, and on the death of Fry very shortly 
he was obliged to step into command of the expedi- 
tion. In spite of his modesty, he said at this time of 
himself: 'I have a constitution hardy enough to 
undergo the most severe trials, and I flatter myself 
resolution to face what any man dares, as shall be 
proved when it comes to the test,' and after a first 
scrap with the French he wrote to his brothers: 

'I fortunately escaped without any wound; for 
the right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and 
received all the enemy's fire. ... I heard the 
bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something 
charming in the sound.' This very un-English 
outburst of military enthusiasm was much laughed 
at at Home, where it was even carried to the King's 
ears. George II remarked, 'He would not say so if 
he had been used to hear many,' and Horace Walpole 
said dryly, 'Rodomontade!' The hero himself felt 
in later years that it was not the sort of thing to say — 
it was rather like the famous 'I cannot tell a lie' — 
and when some one asked him if he really had said it, 
he replied: 

Tf I did, it was when I was young.' 

At the fort which he constructed at Great Meadows 
Washington obtained his first experience in disci- 
plining men whom he was eventually to lead in far 
different battles for far different ends. Now his heart 
was full of loyalty to Great Britain; he was proud of 
possessing a commission in His Majesty's Army; 

25 



George Washington 

and he looked forward to performing distinguished 
service for a country he loved and revered without 
any but traditional knowledge and the stories his 
parents and people like the Fairfaxes had told him 
about it. He was a fine specimen of 'loyal Virginia.' 
Brought up to almost military obedience at home, 
he was at first in despair over the raw material of 
his companies. We should hardly have considered 
them amateur soldiers, so hardy were they and such 
good shots, but they were colonists and pioneers with 
all the spirit of independence of their class, and it was 
a long and arduous task to subdue them to rule and 
order. Washington therefore set forth on a career 
of training that was to redound to his glory, and his 
standard of a soldier's behaviour may be seen by 
his measures against profanity: If any man were 
heard to swear he received twenty-five lashes with- 
out any formality of court martial, and on a second 
offence the punishment was increased. Washington 
had something of the spirit that gave such success 
to the Ironsides of Cromwell. 

As the French made no attack on Great Meadows, 
Washington set forth for Fort Duquesne, leaving a 
company from North Carolina under Captain 
Mackay, an officer holding a commission in the 
regular British army, to hold the fort at Great 
Meadows. On hearing, however, from the Indians 
that 800 Frenchmen and 400 Indians were approach- 
ing, he returned, and stayed a short time longer in 
this fort, which he named from the hard conditions 
under which he stayed there, 'Fort Necessity.' 
On 3rd July, 1754, the French appeared and the 
following morning, after a sharp siege, Washington 

26 



Life Among the Redskins 

was forced to capitulate, obtaining honourable 
conditions from the French commander. The first 
momentous 4th of July in his life was not a 
glorious one. The French losses being nearly four 
times those of the British, Governor Dinwiddie and 
the Virginia House of Burgesses decreed a vote of 
thanks to Washington and his army, 'for their brav- 
ery and the gallant manner in which they had con- 
ducted themselves in the defence of their country.' 

Dinwiddie at this point had a fatal idea; disputes 
as to command and precedence had sprung up oc- 
casionally between oflficers in the regular army and 
provincial officers, and he secured the passing of an 
Act of Parliament at Home by which the former 
always took precedence of the latter. This Act 
perhaps first sowed in Washington's mind the seeds 
of revolt. He at once declared that he could not 
serve under such conditions, handed in his com- 
mission to the Governor, and retired into private life 
at Mount Vernon. It was not pride, he said to Fair- 
fax, but proper self-respect. The colonies thereupon 
declared themselves incapable of dealing with the 
French menace, and Great Britain, fully aware of the 
necessity' for action, made extensive preparations. 
To deal with what was recognised as a serious matter, 
a brave and experienced general was appointed — 
Major-General Braddock, a man of the highest 
reputation for valour and successful leadership under 
European conditions, but of an unpliable character, 
stiff, proud and obstinate. Horace Walpole called 
him, 'a very Iroquois in disposition.' He came out 
with splendid and elaborate equipments and super- 
fluities, because all Governors and Generals from the 

27 



' George JVashington 

Old Country liked, and were perhaps instructed, to 
impress the colonists. He also came out with a 
bold heart and every confidence that his task would 
be an easy one. No prosperous breeze impelled his 
canvas, and poets of old might have seen the direst 
Fates in attendance on Braddock and his army, for 
he was to bring shame on his country and an evil end 
to himself. 

He of course asked for Lieut.-Col. Washington, as 
Washington was by this time the recognised local 
authority on the French encroachments, and when 
Braddock was told that he was in retirement at his 
farm, he said, with the eighteenth century fondness 
for classical allusions: 

*He must leave his farm, as Cincinnatus did, for 
the service of his country!' 

Washington found the chance to see fighting under 
so distinguished a general and with the best British 
regular troops irresistible, and so he left his plough 
and came to be one of Braddock's aides-de-camp, 
experiencing a thrill of joyful anticipation as he pre- 
sented himself at Headquarters. He was about 
to discover how that magic thing, British discipline, 
was obtained and maintained. 

The modest programme for 1755, as planned by 
the Duke of Cumberland at Home, was, first for 
Braddock to step into Fort Duquesne, then trip into 
the French fort of Niagara, then take Fort Frontenac, 
while other operations were proceeding in Canada. 
When Washington set out with Braddock's fine army 
of 'Regulars' and Virginians, in all nearly 3,000 men, 
well accoutred and provided for, banners flying and 
bands playing, he exclaimed: 

28 



Life Among the Redskins 

*This is the grandest spectacle I ever beheld!' 

He was rather astonished at Braddock's remark 
that 'Fort Duquesne can hardly detain me above 
three or four days,' and Benjamin Franklin, whom we 
meet here for the first time, as Postmaster, ventured 
to expostulate: those fine troops and artillery would 
undoubtedly take Fort Duquesne, he said, strongly 
fortified and garrisoned as it was, but it was the march 
there that was to be feared. The Virginians all dis- 
approved of the route chosen, the troops having to 
march in a slender line nearly four miles long, as 
it might be 'cut like thread' by ambushed Indians. 
Braddock smiled, we are told, at his ignorance and 
remarked : 

'These savages may indeed be a formidable 
enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the 
King's regular and disciplined troops, Sir, it is im- 
possible they should make any impression.' 

'I was conscious,' says Franklin, 'of an impropriety 
in my disputing with a military man in matters of 
his profession, and said no more.' 

Braddock also laughed at the very idea of con- 
sulting White Thunder, Silver Heels and other famous 
Indian sachems, who arrived at his Headquarters 
with their warriors and departed grievously oflFended 
at his scorn. 

Hewing his way through forests where loiterers 
were scalped by Indians, and scaling mountains, 
Braddock soon learned that war in America was 
different from war in Europe, and at last complied 
with Washington's blunt request that he would leave 
his wagon-loads of cumbersome equipments and com- 
forts behind, with part of his force, while the rest 

29 



George Washington 

made a dash for Fort Duquesne; even then the Regu- 
lar oflBcers of the advance party would not part with 
their hand-mirrors and scent-bottles and, it was 
well known to the Virginians, deplored the lack of 
smartness of their colleagues. Also Braddock, ac- 
customed to strict routine, stopped, it was said, 
to 'level every molehill and make bridges over every 
brook/ and meanwhile all possibility of a surprise 
attack passed away. Sometimes the Army only did 
two miles a day. Washington fell ill and stayed be- 
hind with the second party, but joined up the day be- 
fore the attack and requested the indignant Braddock 
that the Virginia Rangers, not the Regulars, might 
advance to the assault on the French fort, now only 
fifteen miles away. Of course his request was refused. 
On the morning of the 9th of July, 1755, the British 
troops forded the Monongahela in fine style, with 
drums beating and colours flying, and at noon 
passed another ford leading straight to Fort Du- 
quesne. Before them lay level ground bordered by 
deep, thickly wooded ravines which the Virginians 
were extremely surprised that the General did not 
have searched before letting his army proceed. In- 
stead, the British troops marched along *as if in a 
review in St. James's Park,' and after the advance 
body had passed through the plain, large bands of 
hidden French and Indians began to discharge heavy 
volleys of musketry on the main force, which was 
preparing to follow. The advance party returned 
to their aid, but all were alike shot down by the foe 
hidden in the ravines on their flanks, a foe yelling 
in such a blood-curdling way that it struck terror 
into the hearts of the Regulars, ignorant of Indian 

30 



Life Among the Redskins 

warfare and of the Indian use of these terrifying 
cries. The whole country round about re-echoed with 
war-whoops, and those Indians who from moment to 
moment appeared to aim a deadly shot or to scalp 
a fallen soldier were painted and befeathered in a 
ghastly way. So demoralised were the British rank 
and file that they began to shoot round them indis- 
criminately, and the havoc wrought on Braddock's 
troops was inflicted as much by themselves as by the 
foe. The British ofl&cers all fought bravely on that 
fatal day. Braddock, ever in the thick of the 
slaughter, showed personal courage, but never at- 
tempted to direct his men's firing toward the ravines 
where the foe was hidden. Five horses were killed 
under him, and at last a bullet, passing through his 
right arm, penetrated his lung. He fell from his 
horse, but still prayed to be left on the field, and 
was with diflSculty removed to a place of safety. 

During the whole of this scene Washington had 
been the most conspicuous figure on the field and a 
constant mark for the deadly and invisible enemy. 
All the other aides-de-camp were killed or wounded 
early in the fray, and he alone carried the General's 
orders from one part to another. The Indians 
said afterward that it was no good trying to hit him 
as he was obviously under the protection of the Great 
Spirit. A fellow-combatant wrote of him: 

*I saw him take hold of a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick. 
He looked like a fury; he tore the sheet-lead from the touch-hole; he 
placed one hand on the muzzle, the other on the breach; he pulled with 
this and he pushed with that, and wheeled it round as if it had been 
nothing. It tore the ground like a plough. The powder monkey rushed 
up with the fire, and then the cannon began to bark, I tell you. They 
fought and they fought, and the Indians yelled, when the rest of the 

31 



George JVashington 

cannon made the bark of the trees fly and the Indians came out. That 
place was called Rock Hill, and they left five hundred men dead on the 
ground.' 

After Braddock's fall, Washington and the Vir- 
ginians protected as far as they were able the flight 
of the Regular troops. The retreat of the British 
army was carried out in the utmost disorder, baggage 
and even official papers being abandoned and every 
man doing just as he thought best to secure his per- 
sonal safety. Washington rode off to seek pro- 
visions and ambulance, etc., for the defeated and 
wounded army, and a few days later Braddock, 
having scarcely uttered a word since the disaster, 
died at Great Meadows, where Washington read the 
funeral service, the chaplain having been killed. 

Colonel Dunbar, left with the heavy stores, 
might, the people of Virginia, Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania thought, have even now if he had gone to 
the rescue retrieved this great misfortune, but he 
too was seized with panic and, abandoning the 
frontier to a foe not numerous and dangerously 
emboldened with easy victory, he never stopped in 
his retreat until he arrived at Philadelphia, where he 
went into winter quarters 'in the dog-days.' 

Washington wrote to his mother that 'The das- 
tardly behaviour of those they call Regulars exposed 
all others that were inclined to do their duty to 
almost certain death.' Franklin said: 'This whole 
transaction gave us the first suspicion that our 
exalted ideas of the prowess of the British Regular 
troops had not been well-founded.' Washington 
unwittingly wended his way back to Williamsburg, 
where he urged on the Governor an immediate attack 

32 



Life Among the Redskins 

on Fort Duquesne before the French and Indians 
recovered from their celebrations of their victory. 
The Indians had become so venturesome that the 
colonists were in a worse plight than before the arrival 
of the troops from Great Britain. Washington was 
appointed Commander-in-Chief of the scanty forces 
that could be raised in Virginia and established him- 
self at the frontier town of Winchester to protect the 
country from alarming Indian raids. 

This command meant another brush of an un- 
pleasant character with British authority, for a Cap- 
tain Dagworthy at Fort Cumberland refused to obey 
orders, claiming that having a commission in the 
Regular Army he was Washington's superior. To 
settle this question Washington rode to Boston, a 
distance of five hundred miles, in the depth of win- 
ter, with quite a suite of friends and liveried ser- 
vants, there to lay the case before INIajor-General 
Shirley, now Commander-in-Chief of the British 
forces in North America. At Boston the distin- 
guished young colonel who had saved the remnants 
of Braddock's army and was so tall, handsome and 
perfectly dressed, with such correct appointments, 
obtained considerable social success, and won from 
Shirley a ruling that a commission from a provincial 
Governor was equal to one from the King. 

He got back to Williamsburg in March, 1756, just 
when the province was in a panic over an Indian in- 
road that reached as far as Winchester. All around 
families were being murdered, and no road was safe. 
He wrote urgent letters to Lord Loudoun, Shirley's 
successor, and passed the next two years in doing 
what he could to protect the borders. 

33 



CHAPTER IV: The Seven 
Years' War {1756-1763) 

1HAVE given you a detailed account of 'Brad- 
dock's Rout' and some part of the general 
story of the colonists' difficulties and distresses 
at this time from the Indians and the French, 
as these conditions and episodes were so important 
in the life of Washington and in the history of the 
United States; and I have also shown you that Eng- 
land did not play a very brilliant part in the colo- 
nists' eyes. But though important in their effects on 
the subsequent history of Great Britain also, at the 
moment they seemed to her very small in propor- 
tion to the magnitude of the whole issue between 
her and France. Moreover, it was characteristic of 
the moment of political and military indifference in 
English life in which they happened that they 
should have aroused very little concern. It was 
also characteristic of Great Britain that she woke 
up when people least expected her to do so, and 
won brilliantly a war begun so unfavourably to her. 
The first episodes of tlie war, too, were as disas- 
trous as the preliminaries. 

Both sides, still without declaring war, made al- 
liances, France with Spain and Austria, Britain with 
Prussia, and after Braddock's defeat the French ex- 
pelled the English from their forts on Lakes Ontario 

34 



The Seven Years^ TVar {1756-63) 

and Champlain, and so succeeded in the old plan of 
linking up Canada with Louisiana. Britain declared 
war at last — in May, 1756 — but did little at first to 
check French aggression. In 1756, Frederick the 
Great won some successes for the allied cause, but 
if Great Britain won anything it was ignominy. 

From this state of national humiliation the coun- 
try was raised by William Pitt, afterward the great 
Chatham. He said: 

'I want to call England out of that enervate state 
in which twenty thousand men from France can 
shake her!' and he proved that he was able to do 
so. No one better shows than Chatham how the 
whole prosperity and fame of a nation may depend 
on a single man. Burke said of him: 'a name that 
keeps the name of this country respectable in every 
other on the globe.' He won and maintained the 
confidence of the country and made it do its best, 
and he saved the British Empire from the French. 

The British Empire in India was founded in 1757, 
and Frederick the Great forced the French back to 
the Rhine, while through the genius of Pitt were 
won the victories of Minden and of Quiberon Bay, 
where Hawke destroj^^ed the French fleet. 

In 1758 Montcalm expelled the British from Ti- 
conderoga, but the whole province of Cape Breton 
was conquered, and at last in the South the forces 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia were successfully di- 
rected against Fort Duquesne, as you shall now hear. 

At the end of 1757 Washington fell dangerously ill 
and had to be taken home to Mount Vernon, where 
he passed through a severe illness. During his ab- 
sence Loudoun gave place to Abercrombie, the first 

3d 



George JVashington 

person to appreciate what Washington had all along 
declared, that for the safety of the borders Fort 
Duquesne must be reduced. When Washington was 
recovered he again tried to rouse Virginia in the cause, 
and in one of his repeated journeys to Williamsburg 
for this purpose, there befell him in the merry month 
of May, 1758, another and more fortunate romance. 
As he rode along, his thoughts bent on serious mat- 
ters, he was not entirely pleased to be hailed from 
a gateway of a large house by the owner, a rich 
planter who had known his father. It should never 
be said, declared the hospitable old gentleman, that 
George W^ashington had passed by the house of his 
father's old friend without dismounting, and he com- 
pelled him to enter, much against his will and only 
on condition that he should leave directly after the 
midday dinner; and as they went in Washington 
told his servant that the horses must be at the door 
when he rose from the table. The servant, used to 
rigorous punctuality, duly had them out and was 
surprised beyond measure when hour after hour 
passed by and his master did not appear, and by 
the order at length to unsaddle and put the animals 
up, for they were going to stay all night. At the 
dinner-table Washington had met the lady who was 
soon to be his wife, Mrs. Martha Custis, a beautiful, 
charming widow, very wealthy and unusually gift- 
ed. Washington made up his mind on the spot that 
he should like her further acquaintance, and indeed 
showed unmistakable signs of love at first sight. 
When in the morning he tore himself away he gal- 
loped at full speed to Williamsburg, accomplished 
his errand and sped back along the homeward road 

36 



The Seven Years' War {1756-63) 

only to draw rein at the 'White House,' where Mrs. 
Custis lived, and there he stayed until he became 
her accepted lover, fixing the date of their marriage 
for immediately after the fall of Fort Duquesne. 

The fresh attempt of British Regular troops to 
take this little fort was again carried out without 
much regard for local advice, and Braddock's disas- 
ter was repeated, and only then was the undertak- 
ing definitely handed over to Washington, who thus 
had the satisfaction of carrying out his dearest wish. 
But by what seemed a miracle he found this place, 
which had given so much trouble, deserted and dis- 
mantled, as the success of British arms against the 
French in Canada had made it impossible for the 
French to get supplies or reinforcements. He planted 
the British flag on the still smouldering ruins and the 
fort was restored and named after Britain's great 
minister Pitt, one of the early heroes of George 
Washington. Ks you all probably know, this was 
the beginning of the great city of Pittsburgh. 

The year 1759 was Pitt's great year, and a mar- 
vellous year in British history. Ticonderoga was 
taken from the French, Fort Niagara fell, thus defi- 
nitely separating Canada from Louisiana (which 
France subsequently handed to Spain); and in this 
year took place the heroic episode of Wolfe's siege 
of Quebec. All know the story of his sailing up the 
St. Lawrence and seeking in vain to tempt Mont- 
calm to descend from the lofty heights above the 
river, while the besieging force gradually wasted 
away from sickness; his final scaling at night of the 
Heights of Abraham, whence in the morning he pro- 
ceeded to battle with the French; and how, shot 

37 



George Washington 

through the breast, he lay -in the arms of one of his 
officers, who cried: 'They run!' 'Who run?' asked 
Wolfe. 'The French,' cried the officer. 'Then,' 
said Wolfe, 'I die happy!' He died, but the British 
entered Quebec, and the following year was to see 
his victory completed by the capture of Montreal 
and the end of French rule in Canada. 

This same year, 1759, saw the British arms vic- 
torious everywhere, and Horace Walpole remarked, 
probably with a yawn, that one was forced to ask 
every morning what victory there was, 'for fear of 
missing one.' 

It was also the year of Washington's marriage, 
which had taken place on 6th January at the White 
House. The personal appearance of Washington, 
'the tallest and handsomest man in the Old Domin- 
ion' — he was six foot three inches — and his hand- 
some and imposing-looking bride, dressed in the 
latest English fashion, with all the great people of 
the colony, richly clad in silks and fine array, with 
gold trimmings, old lace, jewels and feathers, made 
the ceremony a splendid and memorable one. 

The newly married pair lived for some time at 
the White House before moving with Mrs. Wash- 
ington's two children, a boy and a girl, to Mount 
Vernon, Washington's stately home. 

'I am now,' Washington wrote to a friend, 'I be- 
lieve, fixed at this seat with an agreeable partner for 
life, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement 
than I ever experienced amidst the wide and bus- 
tling world.' 

It is clear he was no prophet, but he was to enjoy 
fifteen years of domestic peace before the great time 

38 



The Seven Years' TVar {1756-63) 

came when all America was in an uproar and he had 
to bid a long farewell to wife and home. For fifteen 
years he was to go back to his 'plough.' He was a 
princely farmer, being also a tobacco planter, a mil- 
ler, a merchant importing and exporting directly for 
his own account, keeping great patriarchal herds of 
cattle and sheep and spinning his own linen and wool 
(with the exception of articles of luxury and fashion, 
which were shipped to his wharves direct from Great 
Britain). Such was his reputation as an honest mer- 
chant that his goods were exempt from customs in- 
spection at the ports to which they were sent. The 
negro slaves employed on his estate were so numer- 
ous that they had their own hamlet in his grounds, 
and all village industries were practised. The sta- 
bles were well stocked with choice breeds of horses, 
the kennels with hounds. They had numerous equi- 
pages, including a chariot and four in which they 
drove on state occasions, a beautiful barge on the 
river rowed by negroes, a pack of fox-hounds, vast 
orchards and extensive ornamental grounds. The 
new Mrs. Washington had the domestic skill of the 
mother of Washington, and like her husband, loved 
orderly splendour in dress and appointments, though 
never stepping beyond the proper frontiers of mid- 
dle-class opulence and solid comfort of the English 
sort, and rather more than less elegance than other 
colonists in their position. If they made what really 
amounted to a considerable show, it was never so 
much as their means would have permitted. We 
must not forget to think of Washington on state oc- 
casions as dressed, not in the sober fashion of men 
of our own time, but in silks or satins, white or dain- 

39 



George TVashington 

tily coloured; powdered wig, and buckled shoes. 
Among the Mount Vernon archives are still to be 
seen written in his own hand orders such as these — 
* superfine blue cotton velvet for coat, waistcoat 
and breeches, with fine silk buttons to match and 
necessary trimmings, with garters for the breeches, 
fine worked ruffles, riding waistcoats of superfine 
scarlet cloth and gold lace with plain double gilt 
buttons' — orders sent to his agents in Great Britain 
to be forwarded with his more solid consignments. 

He never ceased to be an active worker, constant- 
ly improving his estate. He rose early, often light- 
ing his own fire and reading or writing by candle- 
light. At eight o'clock in winter and seven in sum- 
mer he had breakfast, consisting only of tea and a 
few 'hoe-cakes,' made of Indian meal, then depart- 
ed on horseback to make the round of his estate. 
Dinner at 2 o'clock was a fairly substantial meal; 
and was followed a few hours later by tea and then 
at 9 o'clock by bed. There was considerable society 
life during the session of the legislature, as the Gov- 
ernors brought over British fashions and nearly al- 
ways one of the sons of a rich planter would have 
been sent 'Home' for his education and have re- 
turned with ideas of the amusements of a very gay 
period of English life. Thus balls and parties 
abounded, and the Washingtons, though grave and 
serious people, did not fail to make punctual appear- 
ances at these colonial festivities. To their parish 
church they went with unfailing regularity and the 
whole big household of Mount Vernon assembled at 
family prayers daily. 

The sort of figure Washington made in tlie public 

40 



The Seven Years' War (1756-63) 

mind in the years before the War of Independence 
may be gathered from the following amusing story: 
*It was boasted,' wrote Mr. Custis, on the occasion 
of a visit of Washington to New York, 'at the table 
of the British Governor, that a regiment landed 
from England contained among its officers some of 
the finest specimens of martial elegance in His 
Majesty's service — in fact the most superb looking 
fellows ever landed upon the shores of the New World. 
*'I wager Your Excellency a pair of gloves," said Mrs. 
Morris, an American lady, "I will show you a finer 
man in the procession to-morrow than Your Ex- 
cellency can select from your famous regiment." 
*'Done, Madam," replied the Governor. The morrow 
came (the 4th of June), and the procession, in honour 
of the birthday of the King, advanced through 
Broadway to the strains of military music. As the 
troops defiled before the Governor, he pointed out 
to the lady several officers by name, claiming her 
admiration for their superior presence and brilliant 
equipments. In the rear of the troops came a band 
of officers not on duty — colonial officers — and 
strangers of distinction. Immediately on their ap- 
proach the attention of the Governor was seen to be 
directed toward a tall, martial figure, that marched 
with grave and measured tread, apparently indif- 
ferent to the scene around him. The lady now archly 
observed, "I perceive that Your Excellency's eyes 
are turned to the right object; what say you to your 
wager now, Sir.^" "Lost, Madam," replied the gal- 
lant Governor. "When I laid my wager I was not 
aware that Col. W^ashington was in New York." ' 
To complete the picture of the old happy days of 

41 



George TVashington 

peace before the colonies tore themselves apart from 
Great Britain, we will lift the curtain of the old 
House of Burgesses of Virginia at the moment when 
George Washington first took his seat there. He was 
introduced by the Speaker with such eulogy, and the 
applause of the Assembly was so unanimous, that he 
found in his agitation and humility no words in which 
to reply. He made three vain attempts, and then the 
Speaker came to his rescue, saying: 

*Sit down, Mr. Washington! Your modesty equals your valour and 
that surpasses the power of anything I possess.' 



4S 



CHAPTER V: Great Britain 
in the Eighteenth Century 

THE Seven Years' War, one of the most 
triumphal wars England has ever waged, and 
mixed with almost equal good and evil for 
her destinies, since by it she won India and 
Canada and ultimately lost the American colonies, 
formed and trained almost all the American officers 
of the subsequent War of Independence. As we 
have seen, it set up the first serious friction between 
Great Britain and the colonies and showed the 
colonists how sometimes Great Britain was not all- 
wise or all-powerful; and it is related that a French 
statesman foretold long before the event that the 
Treaty of Paris of 1763, by which France lost her 
possessions in iVmerica, would mean the severance 
of the link that bound the American colonies to the 
mother country. 'She will call on them to con- 
tribute toward supporting the burdens they have 
helped to bring on her,' he said, 'and they will an- 
swer by striking off all dependence.' 

The affection of Great Britain for her children 
across the seas had always been frankly an inter- 
ested one. Their commerce had made her rich and 
it now appeared as though greediness were about to 
burst the sack. She was no longer satisfied with 
her indirect gains, and moreover, as hinted above, 

43 



George Washington 

wished to recuperate for her enormous expenditure 
on the protection of the colonies in the late war. 
Scarcely therefore was the ink dry on the treaty with 
France when schemes were pushed forward at 'Home' 
to draw a direct revenue from the American col- 
onies. Directly the rumour of approaching taxa- 
tion crossed the Atlantic, Washington, among 
others, counselled resistance, declaring that the 
colonists could never agree to taxation without rep- 
resentation. Already, they said, the mother coun- 
try had pushed her restrictions on American com- 
merce to their utmost extent; the colonies were not 
allowed to import or export except to Great Britain 
and to British possessions, and in order to ensure the 
balance of trade being in favour of Great Britain they 
were not allowed to manufacture certain articles, 
which they were thus forced to buy from Great 
Britain. 

The best statesmen at home disapproved of the 
new financial policy with regard to America. Sir 
Robert Walpole said, years before, in words long 
remembered: 

*It must be a bolder man than myself, and one 
less friendly to commerce, who should venture on 
such an expedient.' 

In spite of an opposition of the weightiest kind, 
from the point of view of brains and character, the 
British Parliament in 1764 declared that the British 
legislature had the right to tax America, and a plan 
to establish a standing army there found favour. 

Before beginning, however, our story of the 
American Revolution, we will take a brief glance at 
the home country on the eve of this revolution, 

44 



Great Britain in the 18th "Century 

and in order to understand how great and splendid 
was Britain at that time, when she had first taken her 
place at the head of all nations, v/e cannot do better 
than go to the pages of Thackeray, and especially 
to his lectures on 'The Four Georges.' 

We will start with Thaclvcray's picture of the King, 
or at least with a corner of his portrait of the poor old 
monarch who has been the butt for so many wits ; and 
if any of you have time to read it you may enjoy one 
of the best of the satires on him in Byron's ' Vision of 
Judgment.' Thackeray's account is almost as cruel, 
and nearly as amusing. George III (1760-1820), he 
relates, 'is said not to have cared for Shakespeare or 
tragedy much; farces and pantomimes v/ere his joy; 
and especially when clown swallowed a carrot or a 
string of sausages he would laugh so outrageously 
that the lovely Princess by his side would have to say : 
*'My gracious monarch, do compose yourself." But 
he continued to laugh, and at the very smallest farces, 
as long as his poor wits were left him. His mother 
was a harsh and gloomy woman. "George, be a 
King!" were the words which she was for ever 
croaking in the ears of her son: and a king the 
simple, stubborn, affectionate, bigoted man tried to 
be. He did his best; he worked according to his 
lights; what virtue he knew, he tried to practise; 
what knowledge he could master, he strove to acquire. 
. . . There is something grand about his courage. 
The battle of the King with his aristocracy remains 
yet to be told. ... It was he, with the people to 
back him, who made the war with America; it was he 
and the people who refused justice to the Roman 
Catholics; and on both questions he beat the pa- 

45 



George Washington 

tricians. He bribed, he bullied, he darkly dissembled 
on occasion; he exercised a slippery perseverance and 
a vindictive resolution, which one almost admires as 
one thinks his character over. His courage was 
never to be beat. It trampled North under foot; it 
bent the stiff neck of the younger Pitt: even his 
illness never conquered that indomitable spirit. 
As soon as his brain was clear it resumed the scheme, 
only laid aside when his reason left him; as soon as 
his hands were out of the strait-waistcoat they took 
up the pen and the plan which had engaged him up to 
the moment of his malady.' 

'King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's 
household. It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was frugal; 
it was orderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I shudder 
now to contemplate. . . . Day after day was the same. At the same 
hour at night the King kissed his daughters' jolly cheeks; the Princesses 
kissed their mother's hand; and Madame Thielke brought the royal 
nightcap. At the same hour the equerries and women in waiting had 
their little dinner, and cackled over their tea. The King had his back- 
gammon or his evening concert; the equerries yawned themselves to 
death in the anteroom; or the King and his family walked on Windsor 
slopes, the King holding his darling little Princess Amelia by the hand; 
and the people crowded round quite good-naturedly; and the Eton 
boys thrust their chubby cheeks under the crowd's elbows; and the 
concert over, the King never failed to take his enormous cocked hat off 
and salute his band, and say, "Thank you, gentlemen." 

'A quieter household, a more prosaic life than this of Kew or Windsor 
cannot be imagined. Rain or shine, the King rode every day for hours; 
poked his red face into hundreds of cottages round about, and showed 
that shovel hat and Windsor uniform to farmers, to pig-boys, to old 
women making apple-dumplings, to all sorts of people, gentle and sim- 
ple, about whom countless stories are told. Nothing can be more un- 
dignified than these stories. When Haroun Alraschid visits a subject 
incog, the latter is sure to be much the better for the caliph's magnifi- 
cence. Old George showed no such royal splendour. He used to give a 
guinea sometimes, sometimes feel in his pockets and find that he had 
no money; often ask a man a hundred questions — about the number of 
his family, about his oats and beans, about the rent he paid for hi^ 

46 



Great Britain in the 18th Century 

house — and ride on. . . . All the world knows the story of his malady; 
all history knows no sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and 
deprived of reason, wandering through the rooms of his palace, address- 
ing imaginary parliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly 
courts. I have seen his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in 
the apartment of his daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse Hombourg — 
amidst books and Windsor furniture and a hundred fond reminiscences 
of her English home. The poor old father is represented in a piuple 
gown, his snowy beard falling idly over his breast — the star of his famous 
Order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless, he became 
utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the 
pleasures of this world of God were taken from him. Some slight lucid 
moments he had, in one of which the Queen, desiring to see him, entered 
the room and found him singing a hymn and accompanying himself at 
the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt down and prayed 
aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding 
with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy 
calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He 
then burst into tears and his reason again fled.' 

We do not quite leave him as Byron does, 'prac- 
tising the Hundredth Psalm.' 

For the aristocracy of Great Britain, it was at the 
height of its splendour under the nominal headship of 
George III. 

'As one reads the Selwyn letters,' says Thackeray, 'as one looks at 
Reynolds's noble pictures illustrative of those magnificent times and 
voluptuous people, one almost hears the voice of the dead past — the 
laughter and the chorus; the toast called over the brimming cups; the 
shout at the race-course or the gaming-table; the merry joke frankly 
spoken to the laughing fine lady. How fine those ladies were, those ladies 
who heard and spoke such coarse jokes; how grand those gentlemen! 

'I fancy that peculiar product of the past, the fine gentleman, has 
•almost vanished off the face of the earth, and is disappearing like the 
Tjeaver or the Eed Indian. . . . Children do not go down on their knees 
to beg their parents' blessing; chaplains do not say grace and retire be- 
fore the pudding; servants do not say "your honour" and "your worship" 
at every moment; tradesmen do not stand hat in hand as the gentleman 
passes; authors do not wait for hours in gentlemen's anterooms with a 
fulsome dedication for which they hope to get five guineas from his lord- 
ship. In the days when there were fine gentlemen, Mr. Secretary Pitt's 
under-secretaries did not dare to sit d«wn before him, but Mr. Pitt in 

47 



George Jf^ashington 

his turn went down on his gouty knc«s to George II; and when George 
III spoke a few kind words to him. Lord Chatham burst into tears of 
reverential joy and gratitude; . . . Fancy Lord John Russell or Lord 
Palmerston on tbeir knees whilst the Sovereign was reading a dispatch, 
or beginning to cry because Prince Albert said something civil.' 

Turning away from this great world, gay and corrupt as never before 
or since in English history, so tradition says, we will turn to the real 
glory of Britain, — 'the working educated men, away from Lord North's 
bribery in the senate; the good clergy not corrupted into parasites by 
hopes of preferment; the tradesmen rising into manly opulence; the 
painters pursuing their gentle calling; the men of letters in their quiet 
studies: these are the men we love and like to read of in the last age. 
How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them! 
how contemptible the stories of George III court squabbles are beside 
the recorded talk of dear old Johnson! What is the grandest entertain- 
ment at Windsor compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, 
with Percy and Langton, and Goldsmith and poor Bozzy at the table! 
I declare I think that of all the polite men of that age Joshua Reynolds 
was the finest gentleman. And they were good as well as witty and wise, 
those dear old friends of the past. ... Ah! I would have liked a night 
at the Turk's Head, even though bad news had arrived from the colonies, 
and Doctor Johnson was growling against the rebels; to have sat with 
him and Goldy, and to have heard Burke, the finest talker in the world, 
and to have had Garrick flashing in with a story from his theatre!' 

The estimation in wliich the colonies were held in 
British society at that time was very like the present 
attitude of the metropolis intellectually and artistic- 
ally, to the provinces; and an eminent administrator 
even went so far as to call them Britain's 'back- 
doors.' The idea that they might dispute British 
acts called forth a scorn that was almost brutal 
from hoary Tories and old-aristocratic Whigs, and 
following the Declaratory Act of 1764 referred to 
above came the notorious Stamp Act of 1765, which 
was the signal for the first rising. By this act all 
legal documents were to be written on stamped paper 
purchased from the British Government. The oppo- 
sition in America took at first the form of respectful 

48 



Great Britain in the 18th Century 

petitions, and when the petitions were disregarded, 
and the Act came into force, the day from which it 
dated was observed as a day of mourning, with 
tolling bells and flags at half-mast. Parliament on 
this felt its dignity suffer and became anxious about 
obtaining due respect for its 'prerogative,' a favour- 
ite word in the eighteenth century, before statesmen 
learned that this terrible fear of loss of dignity 'was 
more befitting a village schoolmaster than the states- 
men of a large empire. To humble the colonists, 
therefore, the appointment of judges in America was 
reserved to British commissioners, and it was decreed 
that Americans might be taken to Great Britain for 
trial. 

Nearly all the provincial Assemblies denounced the 
Act, and Associations were formed and pledges 
taken against the use of British manufactures. This 
brought the commercial interest in Great Britain to 
their side and, giving way before the clamours of 
this party, a Committee of the House of Commons 
was formed to consider the question. Before this 
Committee appeared Benjamin Franklin, then in 
London, and his statements led to the repeal of the 
Act in February, 1766. Many people thought the 
colonists were simply showing an unruly spirit and 
discontented disposition, that this opposition was 
only a pretext for a quarrel, and that their victory 
would be the thin end of the wedge — giving in, they 
said, would fatally injure 'prerogative' and en- 
courage further impudence. Therefore Franklin was 
eagerly questioned as to the disposition of America 
before the passing of the Act, and it was noted that 
he had no hesitation in replying: 

49 



George TVashington 

'The best in the world. . . . They were governed 
by this country at the expense only of a httle pen, ink 
and paper. . . . Natives of Great Britain were 
always treated with particular regard; to be an Old 
England man was, of itself, a character of some 
respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.' 

If the Stamp Act were not repealed, he foretold the 
total loss of the respect and affection of the Americans 
and also the total loss of their commerce, while they 
would only submit to it by force of arms. 

The repeal was carried out by the ministry of 
Rockingham, the friend and patron of Burke, but 
this ministry, pledged to a broadminded policy with 
regard to America, did not last very long, and was 
replaced by a curious administration described by 
Burke, in a well-known passage: 

'He (the aged Chatham, the statesman of the Seven Years' War) made 
an administration so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece 
of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so 
variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated 
pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of 
white; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans; Whigs and 
Tories; treacherous friends and open enemies — that it was indeed a very 
curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on. The 
colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards stared at each other, 
and were obliged to ask, "Sir, your name?" — "Sir, you have the advantage 
of me" — "Mr. Such-a-one" — "I beg a thousand pardons". . . When his 
face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, 
without chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends, who 
with the names of various departments of ministry were admitted to 
seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all 
men, and with a confidence in him that was justified even in its extrava- 
gance by his superior abilities, had never in any instance presumed upon 
any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding influence, they were 
whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; 
and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most 
directly opposite to his opinions, measures and character, and far the 
most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to 

50 



Great Britain in the 18th Century 

seize upon the vacant, unoccupied and derelict minds of his friends, and 
instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy 
. . . and with great parade, in his name, they made an act declaring it 
highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America.' 

So the new Revenue Act of 1767 and other oppressive measures were 
passed, and the colonies were set aflame. Not only were resolutions 
taken not to use British goods again, but it was decided to start the manu- 
facture of the prohibited articles. This led Great Britain to send an 
army to the colonies to restore the authority of Government, and in 
September, 1768, fourteen men-of-war, bearing 700 British troops, ap- 
peared ofif Boston harbour. 



51 



CHAPTER VI: Commander- 
in- Chief 

BURKE said that he did not choose to break 
the American spirit because it was the spir- 
it that had made England. A love of free- 
dom was the predominating feature of the 
colonists, and they would resist every effort to take 
from them the only advantage they thought worth 
living for. They were the descendants of English- 
men, and England was a nation that adored her 
freedom. At the time of the emigrations to New 
England in the seventeenth century this characteris- 
tic was most prominent, and the colonists, he told Par- 
liament, 'took this bias and direction the moment 
they parted from your hands.' They were therefore 
not only devoted to liberty, ' but to liberty according 
to English ideas, and on English principles.' They 
nearly all studied law, and 'they augur misgovcrn- 
ment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyr- 
anny in every tainted breeze.' 'The temper and 
character which prevail in our colonies are,' he said, 
'I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We 
cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce peo- 
ple, and persuade them that they are not sprung 
from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom 
circulates. The language in which they would hear 
you tell them this tale would detect the imposition; 
your speech would betray you. An Englishman is 

52 



Commander-iti' Chief 

the unfittest person on earth to argue another Eng- 
hshman into slavery.' 

So the curtain was drawn up on the struggle, a 
struggle more for dignity's sake than for any solid 
gain anticipated by Great Britain, and in March, 
1770, the first blow was struck, on the occasion of 
the famous 'Boston Massacre,' a great name for a 
small though significant incident, four civilians being 
killed, and several wounded, by the military. 

The town of Boston had been for two years in 
military occupation, and although the Opposition 
secured a repeal of the Revenue Act as a whole, the 
tax on tea was retained, not for revenue but for the 
principle of the thing, as an assertion of the right of 
Great Britain to place taxes. The colonists refused 
to touch the tea, although the price had been art- 
fully arranged to tempt them, and in vain tea-laden 
ships were sent to cruise in the harbours of a tea- 
loving people. Some of them were not even allowed 
to discharge, and at Boston the ships would have 
sailed away again with their goods, as they did from 
the other ports, but this the Governor would not 
permit. A party of Bostonians, therefore, in 1773, 
disguised as Red Indians, went aboard a vessel and 
discharged the cargo into the sea. This was the fa- 
mous 'Boston Tea Party,' and the biggest storm 
there ever was in a tea-cup. Washington called the 
taxed tea 'gunpowder tea,' as it caused explosions 
all over America. As a punishment for this outra- 
geous deed 'Boston Port Bill ' closed that harbour and 
put a full-stop to its trade. This was looked upon 
by the colonists as a final piece of ' tyranny ' on the 
part of Great Britain. 

53 



George JVashington 

The House of Burgesses of Virginia had not been 
slow in denouncing the new trend of British poHcy. 
Patrick Henry, one of the heroes of the Revolution, 
presented in 1765 inflammatory resolutions to the 
House, and after some modifications they were adopt- 
ed, whereupon the assembly was immediately dis- 
solved by the Governor. In the course of the de- 
bate Henry made a speech which put him at the 
head of American orators, and when all were hang- 
ing on the words that dropped from liis lips, the 
young man said menacingly: 

'Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, 
and George III ' 

'Treason, treason!' interrupted the speaker. 

'And George III may profit by their example,' 
concluded Patrick Henry in loud and ringing tones. 
'If this be treason, make the most of it!' 

Washington voted for the resolutions of Patrick 
Henry and expressed his indignation with the Gov- 
ernor for dissolving the Assembly. Lord Fairfax, on 
the other hand, strongly on the side of the 'Tories,' 
as the loyalists were later to be called, condemned 
severely any criticism of the Home Government, and 
warned Washington against the 'wrath of the Brit- 
ish lion.' He thought Boston justified in refusing to 
use taxed goods, but her further action he qualified 
as 'insurrection.' Washington disapproved of some 
actions of the Bostonians, such as ill treatment of 
the stamp distributors, but he declared his full sym- 
pathy with the people, who had been driven to such 
steps by 'acts of usurpation and tyranny,' and he, 
with most other people, mourned and fasted. 

A new Governor again dissolved the Assembly, 

54 



Commander-in- Chief 

and the burgesses took to meeting at the Raleigh 
Tavern at Williamsburg, where Washington brought 
forward articles of Association, on the New England 
pattern, pledging those who signed not to use arti- 
cles taxed by the mother country in order to raise 
a revenue in America. 

From this time on, the Virginian Assembly was 
constantly prorogued and the burgesses became more 
and more irritated. On 1st March, 1773, therefore, 
they appointed a committee of eleven to collect acts 
and resolutions of the British Parliament which af- 
fected the British colonies, and to get into touch 
with the sister colonies. This initial step of 'our 
noble patriotic sister colony of Virginia' was fol- 
lowed immediately by most of the sister colonies, 
and the plan of a General Congress was approved, 
to be held on 5 th September at Philadelphia to de- 
liberate on the united interests of the colonies. The 
Massachusetts Assembly took a 'Solemti League 
and Covenant' — and those who knew their English 
history grew frightened when they heard again the 
ring of those words — to break off all intercourse with 
Great Britain from 1st August. 

Thomas Jefferson, another Virginian who was to 
be President of the United States one day, was 
elected delegate for his county to the General Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, and also requested to draft 
the instructions of Virginia to its delegates. He took, 
he tells us, the ground 'that the relation between 
Great Britain and its colonies was the same as that of 
England and Scotland after the accession of James 
and until the union, and the same as her present re- 
lations with Hanover, having the same executive 



George Washington 

chief but no other necessary poHtical connexion; 
and that our emigration from England to this country 
gave her no more rights over us than the emigrations 
of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authori- 
ties of the mother country over England.' 

Thus the first fateful General Congress began to 
loom on the American horizon, as ten years later the 
States-General was to dawn on the horizon of France, 
and the separation from Great Britain was approach- 
ing ever more rapidly and steadily, Washington, in 
a strain of eloquence unusual with him, urged con- 
stancy and abstinence from all but the bare neces- 
sities of life, and declared that he was himself ready 
to raise 1,000 men, maintain them at his own ex- 
pense, and march at their head to the relief of Boston. 

It is astounding that Great Britain should have 
taken no adequate steps to put matters right, for she 
neither granted the colonists' demands nor sent out 
sufficient force to quell them. Indeed, General Gage, 
recently appointed to military command in Massa- 
chusetts, said to the King on leaving Britain: 

'The Americans will only be lions so long as the 
English are lambs.' 

Washington declared that his conduct after his 
arrival was 'more becoming a Turkish bashaw than 
an English Governor,' and that his declaration that 
it was treasonable to associate in any way that could 
affect the commerce of Great Britain was 'an un- 
exampled testimony of the most despotic system of 
tyranny that ever was practised in a free Govern- 
ment.' He pinned his faith, however, chiefly to re- 
fusing English importations, at the same time in- 
sisting that remittances due to Great Britain should 

56 



Commander-iti' Chief 

be paid. 'While we are accusing others of injustice,' 
he' said, 'we should be just ourselves.' 

The fellow delegates of Washington from Virginia 
counted among them famous names — Peyton Ran- 
dolph, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Benjamin 
Harris; — and Gage, already startled by the 'Solemn 
League and Covenant' of Massachusetts, began to 
form some idea of the proportions of the coming 
revolt of the colonies when he heard of the calling 
of this General Congress. 

Soon Washington, in company with two colleagues, 
was riding away from Mount Vernon for Philadelphia 
where that Congress was to be held, and its first 
session opened in Carpenters' Hall on 5th September, 
1774. John Adams, who had been helping to direct 
the Bostonians in their resistance to the military 
grip that was on them, declared that, 'It is such an 
assembly as never before came together on a sudden 
in any part of the world. Here are fortunes, abilities, 
learning, eloquence, acuteness, equal to any I ever 
met with in my life. Here is a diversity of religion, 
education, manners, interests such as it would seem 
impossible to unite in one plan of conduct.' Patrick 
Henry said: 'All America is thrown into one mass. 
Where are your land-marks, your boundaries of 
colonies .f^ They are all thrown down! The dis- 
tinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New 
Yorkers and New Englanders, are no more. I am 
not a Virginian, but an American.' 

When a rumour arrived of a cannonade of Boston 
by the British, whose ships filled the harbour, fiery 
indignation filled every heart. Congress assembled 
the next morning and at the usual daily divine 

57 



George Washington 

service the 35th Psalm happening to be the psalm 
for the day, it was thought that this was by Provi- 
dential ruling. At its close the specially appointed 
chaplain to Congress burst out into an extempore 
prayer for America, for the Congress, for the prov- 
ince of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the 
town of Boston. 

Patrick Henry's eloquent appeals to his country- 
men on this occasion to oppose Great Britain to the 
end were never forgotten. But on the whole the pro- 
ceedings of Congress, always 'awfully solemn,' 
were models of business m.ethod and legal drjmess. 
The 'Petition of Right' and the 'Bill of Right' of 
Stuart times in Great Britain were remembered by 
men who had received from their grandfathers and 
great-grandfathers accounts of those great struggles 
for popular freedom, and now a 'Declaration of 
Colonial Rights' was drawn up. This document 
claimed for the descendants of Englishmen the right 
to legislate, and rejected all imperial taxation that 
was imposed solely for the raising of a revenue in 
America; it asserted the right to trial by jury, won 
so long ago as Magna Charta, to public meeting, 
and to petition the King; it pronounced against 
the maintenance of a standing army in any colony 
in time of peace without the consent of the legislature 
of the colony; and all the Acts which had lately 
been 'unlawfully' passed by the British Parliament 
were condemned. The subtlety with which the 
colonial mind at this Congress dealt with nice points 
of law and could put Great Britain in the wrong, 
and the general old-fashioned Whig calmness dis- 
played, amazed many of themselves, and made 

58 



Commander-in- Chief 

John Adams, deeply read in political history, think 
of the Privy Councils of Queen Elizabeth; and in 
the whole Congress the man of most unquestioned 
weight was Washington. Chatham said, appearing, 
unconquerable old man, in the House of Lords from 
his sick-bed in order to support the memorial sent 
by Congress to Parliament, and with all the old fire 
in eyes and voice: 

*The Acts must be repealed; they will be repealed. 
You cannot enforce them. But bare repeal will not 
satisfy this enlightened and spirited people. . . . 
You must declare you have no right to tax them. . . . 
I have crawled to this House, my lords, to give you 
my best advice, which is to beseech His Majesty that 
orders may instantly be despatched to General Gage 
to remove the troops from Boston. Their presence 
is a source of perpetual irritation and suspicion to 
those people. How can they trust you with the 
bayonet at their breast.'' They have all the reason 
in the world to believe that you mean their death or 
slavery. . . . My lords, if the ministers thus per- 
severe in misadvising the King he will be undone. 
He may, indeed, still wear his crown, but, the 
American jewel out of it, it will not be worth the 
wearing.' 

His words fell on deaf ears now, and it was or- 
dered that 7,000 more soldiers should be sent to 
Boston without delay. These troops, however, found 
when they got to Boston that instead of controlling 
America they were practically a small and isolated 
garrison in a beleaguered town, in the midst of a 
hostile population. Gage, in view of the situation, 
had all the munitions he could lay hands on collect- 

59 



George Washington 

ed and brought into the city, and fortified 'Boston 
Neck.' Then he waited for an opportunity to get 
out, and he had to wait. 

In March, 1776, a Virginian Convention met at 
Richmond, and here first it was reahsed how the 
new pohtical ideas had been germinating and grow- 
ing in men's minds. Patrick Henry declared with 
all his fervour and enthusiasm: 

*We must fight, I repeat it, Sir, we must fight! 
An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all 
that is left us.' Washington offered to accept the 
command of a Company which his brother John 
Augustine was training for the purpose of the Revo- 
lution, and already spoke of devoting his life and 
fortune to *the Cause.' 

The first shot was fired in 1775. Gage had 
planned a surprise attack on Concord arsenal for 
the night of April 18th, but the colonial 'Committee 
of Safety' was fully aware of all his preparations, 
and when Major Pitcairn arrived at Lexington near 
Concord he found a few score countrymen on the 
Green, armed after the colonial fashion. He bade 
them depart and on their refusal fii-ed on them and 
killed or put them to flight, then went on to Concord, 
only to discover that a large part of the munitions 
had been removed. Finding the look of the country 
ugly enough he retreated in all haste to Boston. 'If 
the retreat had not been so precipitate,' wrote Wash- 
ington, 'and God knows it could not well have been 
more so — the ministerial troops must have surren- 
dered or been totally cut off.' Washington Irving 
describes the 'troops which in the morning had 
marched through Roxbury to the tune of Yankee 

60 



Commander-in- Chief 

Doodle' reliirning at sunset 'hounded along the old 
Cambridge Road to Charlestown Neck by mere 
armed yeomanry.' Old Israel Putnam, working in 
his fields, left the plough in the furrow, sent his son 
home to inform the household of his movements, 
and set out for Boston. Washington too was swept 
away by the great wave of indignation. When he 
heard of Lexington he wrote to Fairfax, then in 
England : 

'Unhappy it is to reflect that a brother's sword 
has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that 
the once happy and peaceful plains of America are 
to be either drenched with blood or inhabited by 
slaves.' The first gun was fired at Lexington, and, 
said John Adams, it was heard all round the world. 
This episode was the real beginning of the War of 
Independence. The various States at once began to 
raise armies, and Washington at the second General 
Congress at Philadelphia declared again that there 
was but one course for Americans: 'The army of 
Great Britain,' he said, 'has deliberately attacked 
us. The work of this Congress should be to create 
an army and provide for defence. . . . Our ap- 
peals have been spurned; our entreaties have been 
interpreted as the pleas of cowardice; our patience 
has been regarded as pusillanimity. Because British 
oppression has been met by respectful remonstrance 
instead of indignant denunciation, it has appealed to 
arms; and that appeal must be promptly met by war- 
like preparations and the challenge to battle.' 

It was unanimously decided that of the 'Conti- 
nental' army in process of formation Washington 
should be Commander-in-Chief, and lie accepted the 

61 



George Washington 

dangerous honour of being chief rebel without hesita- 
tion — only refusing payment for anything but ex- 
penses, of which he kept a strict account. Everyone 
at the time — and even more at the time, so gloomy 
in prospects, than later — thought that it was a great 
sacrifice for a man like Washington to give up all 
the comforts of middle-age for no hope of private 
ambition and assume the leadership of a cause that 
seemed desperate; for what were the colonists in 
wealth or training that they should presume to draw 
the sword against the mother country — at the height 
of her prestige, at the close of a great war in which 
she had defeated the most famous armies of Europe? 
He wrote to his brother John Augustine: 

*I am now to bid adieu to you and to every kind 
of domestic ease, for a while. I am embarked on a 
wide ocean, boundless in its prospect, and in which, 
perhaps, no safe harbour is to be found. I have been 
called upon by the unanimous voice of the colonies 
to take the command of the Continental Army, an 
honour I neither sought after nor desired, as I am 
thoroughly convinced that it requires great abilities 
and much more experience than I am master of.' 

On 20th June, 1775, he received his commission 
from Congress, and it was said that he appeared in 
every respect an ideal commander, and that the air 
rang with acclamations when he first took liis place 
at the head of his troops — a splendid manly figure 
such as an officers' corps rarely saw, and a man who 
in every way could command the obedience of his 
fellow colonists. 

It was a long time before he could coordinate their 
efforts, and before he took up the reins of command 

62 



Commander-in- Chief 

their independent exertions had won some brilliant 
successes, which had, however, no permanent fruit. 
For instance, the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point, which from their situation commanded the 
main route to Canada, were seized by surprise from 
the negligent British. 

Boston, however, had been and remained the cen- 
tre of interest and Washington bent his course 
straight for the American camp outside that city, 
without even taking the time to go home to say fare- 
well to his household or arrange his affairs, though, 
as we have seen, he realised that he might never see 
Mount Vernon again. 'Duty,' he said, as did Nel- 
son later, 'is the watchword now!' To his wife he 
wrote: 

*It was utterly out of my power to refuse this ap- 
pointment without exposing my character to such 
censures as would have reflected dishonour upon my- 
self and given pain to my friends. This, I am sure, 
could not and ought not to be pleasant to you, and 
must have lessened me considerably in my own es- 
teem.' 

As he approached New York on his way to the 
Boston camp, he was met by a courier with the news 
of the first pitched battle of the war — the Battle of 
Bunker's Hill, and after listening with rapt atten- 
tion to the account of the extraordinary valour of 
the colonials, he saw in the engagement, as everyone 
else saw, that the colonists had won a moral victory, 
and he exclaimed: 

'The liberties of our country are saved!' 

Let us now see the great things that had been 
happening at Boston before Washington's arrival. 

63 



CHAPTER VII: The Siege of 
Boston {1775-1776) 

j4 T Boston, General Gage and the British 

/% troops found themselves in the position of 

/ %^ soldiers in a besieged fortress. They could 

not get out by land, because of the colonial 

army and the vast unfriendly country, and they 

could get supplies from America neither by land nor 

sea, for the same reason. 

Great Britain, determined on the subjugation of 
these unruly subjects, sent further forces and her 
distinguished generals, Howe, Burgojue and Henry 
Clinton, and it is said that as they sailed into the 
harbour and Burgoyne was shown the 'rebel camp' 
with its 10,000 yeomanry holding imprisoned the 
5,000 Regular troops in Boston, he exclaimed in 
wrath : 

'What! Ten thousand peasants keep 5,000 King's 
troops shut up! Well, let's get in, and we'll soon 
find elbow room!' 

The 'peasants' then had the brilliant idea of es- 
tablishing themselves on Bunker's Hill and Dorches- 
ter Heights, on the north side of Boston and from 
these posts of vantage bombarding the town and 
harbour. Breed's Hill, v/ithin sight and hearing of 
the town garrison, was occupied and fortiiied after a 
fashion one warm summer's night while Boston slept 

64 



The Siege of Boston {1775-1776) 

secure, even the sentry's cry of * All's well!' coming 
to the ears of the rebels as they toiled feverishly to 
make their position defendable, and by morning the 
sight of this camp over their heads greatly annoyed 
the British. Of course the officers as they performed 
their careful morning toilets and jested in the light 
eighteenth-century way, in the way of a lost society, 
delightful and now impossible to recover, saw the 
'works' with scorn and amusement, turned out to 
sweep them away with some boredom, and thought 
to drive the rustics in their country frocks and with 
their antiquated fowling-pieces back into their 
'camp.' Gage gave the order for the hill to be 
taken, and, while the rebels were energetically throw- 
ing up fm'ther works on Bunker's Hill, preparations 
were made to attack them. Three times did the 
British ascend to the capture of Breed's Hill, and 
twice were they thrown back with great slaughter, 
and the third time they remonstrated at the order 
to attack, for they learned for the first time that 
the colonists were unerring marksmen. Burgoyne 
wrote home afterward: 

'Sure I am, nothing ever has or ever can be more 
dreadfully terrible than what was to be seen or heard 
at this time. The most incessant discharge of guns 
that ever was heard by mortal ears!' The Ameri- 
cans retreated only when they had come to an end 
of their ammunition, and then they retreated in 
perfect order, as they were to do in the many de- 
feats that awaited them in the early part of this 
great struggle, and so they lost only 450 men, where- 
as the British, who fought with equal courage and 
doggedness, lost 1054 killed and wounded. Among 

65 



George Washington 

the bravest of the brave was old Putnam, wlio rode 
about in a sleeveless waistcoat on account of the 
heat, and looked, said the British, 'much fitter to 
head a band of sickle men or ditchers than mus- 
keteers.' 

So was the Battle of Bunker's Hill lost and won, 
and it caused such exultation to the Americans and 
such humiliation to the British that it amounted in 
fact to a great moral victory for th(; former. 

While Boston was thus left the centre of Britisli 
rule, th(; question of who was to have New York 
loomed on the horizon, as there was a large loyalist 
party there. The city was of the utmost importance 
both on account of its trade and of its position, for 
in British hands it would }>e a barrier between the 
eastern and western colonies. At present it was 
doubtful which party would get the upper hand, 
and to (Jeneral Sfhuyler, who had obtained much 
experience in the Seven Years' War, Wasliington 
gave command here. A new Governor from Eng- 
land was daily (;xpected at New York, and Wash- 
ington accompanied by Cienerals Schuyler and Lee? 
was approaching from Philadelphia on his way to 
the rebel headquarters at Cambridge by Boston, 
and the city had to choose. The civic authorities 
thercifore thinking more of safety than political 
rights and wrongs, gav(; the order that military hon- 
ours were to be accord(;d to the party that arrived 
first; and as Washington arrived first he was re- 
ceived with every mark of recognition of his posi- 
tion. But New York, far from the simplicity of spir- 
it and single-minded heroism of New England and 
Pennsylvania, had a strong commercial sense, and 

66 



The Siege of Boston {17 7 5- 17 7 6) 

when the new Governor from Engh\ud hvnded he re- 
ceived the same honours. ^Yhat was to bo done? On 
leaving, Washington said significantly to Sclniyler: 

'If forcible measures are judged necessary respect- 
ing the present Governor, I should have no difficulty 
in ordering tliem if the Continental Congress were 
not sitting, but as that is tlie oase, and the seizing of 
a Governor quite a new thing, I must refer you to 
that body for direction.' 

Sucli an outrageous stop Congress was not yet 
prepared to take, and yet it is clear that Washing- 
ton was right — it would have cleared the patli of 
America considerably if the Governor had been ar- 
rested at the first opportunity. 

Washington then went on his way with Lee and 
on his arrival at Cambridge ho had his first taste of 
greatness. The uproarious applause of the soldiery 
and the salvoes of artillery rending the air were 
heard in Boston, and in a pompous ceremonial he 
took over his conunand. The 'Great Elm' under 
which he wheeled his horse and drew his sword is 
still pointed out, and tales of his splendid appear- 
ance are still to be read in American histories. Mrs. 
John Adams wrote to her husband: 

'Dignity, ease and complacency, the gentlenum 
and tlie soldier, look agreeably l)lended in him. 
Modesty nuirks every line aiul feature of his face.' 

The Cause of his country, said Washington, had 
called him to play an active and dangerous part, 
and he relied on Divine Providence to discharge it 
with ability and success. 

The house at Cambridge where W^ashington took 
up his abode was afterward known as (^raigie House. 

t)7 



George Washington 

Sparks edited his writings within its walls and here 
Longfellow afterward lived. Washington here con- 
tinued his old simple way of life, or rather he simpli- 
fied it still farther, eating baked apples and drink- 
ing milk, and often leaving an officer to represent 
him at the festive board when such rare events as 
banquets took place. 'Old Put' was a kindred spir- 
it, and together they introduced the severest disci- 
pline, with punishment of many lashes. If Congress 
decreed a day of prayer and fasting, officers and men 
were compelled to observe that day by abstaining 
from worldly occupations and attending service. As 
in the Indian wars, Washington was greatly distressed 
by the spirit of independence of his force, a spirit 
of independence which amounted indeed to a lack of 
discipline, and the lack of armour and ammunition 
of the 'Continental Army' was well calculated to 
strike despair into the heart of an officer who had in 
his youth worshipped the fittings and equipment of 
disciplined European troops. He said 'No army 
was ever in a condition so deplorable ! ' and he had a 
foundation for pessimism. A British oflicer wrote 
home: 

*The rebel army are in so wretched a condition as 
to clothing and accoutrements that I believe no na- 
tion ever saw such a set of tatterdemalions. There 
are few coats among them but that are out at el- 
bows, and in a whole regiment there is scarce a 
whole pair of breeches.' 

On the other side Boston was full of picked regu- 
lar troops under famous generals. To starve them 
out seemed the only hope, and as their one way of 
getting provisions was to send out marauding parties 

68 



The Siege of Boston {1775-1776) 

by sea to land on the coasts and carry oflf cattle and 
stores, Washington had all cattle driven inland. 'I 
have done and shall do,' he wrote to his brother 
John Augustine, 'everything in my power to dis- 
tress them.' As it was rumoured that Gage threw 
captured oflBcers into the common gaol, Washing- 
ton threatened to do the same with British officers 
caught, and wrote to Gage to remonstrate. Gage 
replied that all captives were being treated humane- 
ly, although he could recognise no rank that did not 
come from the King, and by the law of the land 
these rebels' lives were 'destined to the cord.' Wash- 
ington replied: 'You affect, Sir, to despise all rank 
not derived from the same source as your own. I 
cannot conceive any more honourable than that which 
flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and 
free people.' These sentiments seem neither fresh 
nor startling novf, but they were bold indeed then 
and mark the beginnings of modern history. If 
Washington said but little, he spoke to the point. 

Ethan Allen, who has been called the 'Robin 
Hood' of the American Revolution, after capturing 
Ticonderoga, and winning many brilliant successes, 
was taken prisoner in attempting to surprise and 
take Montreal in Canada, and he was treated by his 
captors as an ordinary outlaw. In red w^ool cap, 
deer-skin jacket and hunting boots he appeared be- 
fore a British officer, who asked him with much 
curiosity if he was that 'Colonel Allen' who had 
taken Ticonderoga. 'I told him I was that very 
man/ relates the rebel, 'and he shook his cane over 
my head, calling me many hard names, among which 
he frequently used the word "rebel." * Ethan Allen 

69 



George Washington 

was put in irons and taken to England on a man-of- 
war, with the prospect of Tyburn gallows before 
him. 

Such acts as Ethan Allen's unauthorised and reck- 
less attempt to surprise Montreal did no good and 
were the despair of Washington, who never relaxed 
his efforts to obtain discipline and coordination, and 
by establishing officers of the first abilities over the 
troops he gradually trained them to some resem- 
blance to a real army, instead of very large bands of 
brigands. From childhood he was a martinet in 
military matters. 

Another great thing he did was to get the various 
provinces to lay aside local jealousies and rivalries 
and think as Americans. In his first Order to the 
army he stated that the soldiers raised by the vari- 
ous colonies were now the troops of the United 
Provinces of North America, so that one 'hoped 
that all distinctions of colonies will be laid aside, so 
that one and the same spirit may animate the whole 
and the only contest be who shall render . . . the 
most essential service to the great and common cause 
in which all are engaged.' 

His 'raw material,' which left so much to be de- 
sired from the point of view of the cast-iron military 
mind and burned with a zeal sometimes inconven- 
ient, had on the other hand qualities of faith and 
doggedness that no mere professionalism could cre- 
ate or obtain. Those bygone wars pale before the 
horrors of tlie w^ars of to-day — the wars of the Age 
of Machinery — but they brought manhood out in 
much the same way, if they did not destroy it so fa- 
tally; and although they had not to face the worst 

70 



The Siege of Boston {1775-1776) 

engines of destruction of modern invention the col- 
onists were without any of the conveniences of mod- 
ern warfare — long guns, railway lines, airships for 
reconnoitring, or even respectable roads. 

The advantages of stores and equipment were 
markedly with the British, of course, at the begin- 
ning, although the colonists were better placed for 
remedying these disadvantages. The colonial army 
as Washington gradually moulded it was on a Crom- 
wellian model, and was to show how greatly piety 
and sobriety count in warfare. General Lee, cynical 
and sceptical like nearly all educated people of his 
age, laughed when he heard of the days of prayer 
and fasting, and said, shaking his head, 'God is on 
the side of the heaviest battalions!' It is an old 
mocking saying, not always true. 

Washington thought almost as little of the Ameri- 
can forces at one time as did his foes: 

'I have often thought,' he wrote, 'how much hap- 
pier I should have been if, instead of accepting the 
command under such circumstances I had taken my 
musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, 
if I could have justified the measure to posterity 
and my own conscience, had retired to the back 
country and lived in a wigwam.' 

However, after months of patient training and 
equipping, on the 4th of March, the anniversary of 
the 'Boston Ma«sacre,' he determined to make an 
attack on that town. On the night of the 3d breast- 
works were to be stealthily thrown up on Dorchester 
Heights and be so strengthened that by the morn- 
ing of the 4th it would be too late for the enemy to 
do anything. Putnam was to make a simultaneous 

71 



George JVashington 

attack on the other side of the town, with 4,000 
troops. The plan was brilliantly carried out, and 
when on the morning of the 4th the British, entirely 
taken by surprise, saw the redoubts which had sprung 
up in the night on Dorchester Heights they saw that, 
on this second occasion, they must dislodge the reb- 
els or leave the town. Was it to be a new battle of 
Bunker's Hill? Howe, who had succeeded Gage in 
command, remarked: 

'The rebels have done more work in one night 
than my whole army would have done in one month.' 

He began an assault of the Heights by land and 
sea, but a storm coming to the aid of the Americans, 
as it had done to England in the days of the Great 
Armada, they were able to make their position al- 
most impregnable before they could be attacked. It 
was one of the dark moments in British history, and 
the garrison of Boston found itself check-mated. To 
take Dorchester Heights now was not to be thought 
of, and yet they could not stay in the town to be 
destroyed by colonial artillery. They must therefore 
go, but they could not capitulate to rebel subjects of 
their King — rather die at their posts. One wonders 
what sort of jests the gay garrison exchanged now, 
for although I have said that they would rather die 
at their posts than capitulate to 'rebels,' we know 
very well that that was not the sort of remark that 
was made by educated Britons in the eighteenth 
century. They would probably say, as Britons have 
always had a habit of doing at grave moments : ' We 
shall have to get out of this, but how on earth can 
we do it? Generals Howe, Burgoyne and Clinton 
send plenipotentiaries to ask for terms from these 

72 



The Siege of Boston {1775-1776) 

boors in smocks who have managed to catch us in 
this nice trap? And how ever shall we address our 
note? We can't possibly use the official names they 
have taken. General Washington! General Put- 
nam! It's a nuisance!' 

Finally Howe, without recognising the rebels as 
an equal opponent to whom submission could be 
made, determined to depart. Famine had already 
appeared in the town, and sickness was rife, and 
this problem of capitulation without submission had 
to be solved in the one way possible — simply walk- 
ing out, exposed perhaps to a murderous fire from 
the Heights. Washington was indirectly but clearly 
informed of Howe's intention and warned that if the 
Americans fired the British army would set fire to 
Boston before leaving it. All the 'Tories,' as the 
colonial loyalists in the town were called by their 
fellow colonials, took the precaution of departing 
with the British, and so earned for themselves the 
execration of the Continental Army. On the 17th of 
the month the whole party embarked on seventy- 
eight ships in the harbour. Washington in indigna- 
tion remarked of the defaulting 'Tories' that they 
chose to commit themselves 'to the waves at a tem- 
pestuous season rather than meet their offended 
countrymen.' It was certainly an event to startle 
the loyalists — it had never entered their heads that 
Great Britain could be defeated by the small, miser- 
ably equipped army that had invested it for the last 
year. At 'Home' in the House of Lords the Duke 
of Manchester said: 

'The army of Great Britain, equipped with every 
possible essential of war; a chosen army with chosen 

73 



George TVashington 

officers, backed by the power of a mighty fleet, sent 
to correct revolted subjects; sent to chastise a resist- 
ing city; sent to assert Great Britain's authority — 
has for many tedious months been imprisoned with- 
in that town by the Provincial army, who, their 
watchful guards, permitted them no inlet to the 
country, who braved all their efforts and defied all 
their skill and ability in war could ever attempt.' 

A unanimous vote of thanks to Washington was 
passed by Congress, and it was ordered that a gold 
medal should be struck in commemoration of the 
fall of the town and should bear on it the effigy of 
Washington. 



74 



CHAPTER VIII: The Decla^ 
ration of Independence {1776) 

THE desirability of cutting the colonies 
adrift from the mother country was now 
openly mooted all over the country. Great 
Britain no longer seemed to be invincible 
and in any case as it was necessary to fight her it 
would be safer to do so as an independent State 
than as rebels. Rebels if caught were subject to 
every indignity of treatment, and moreover foreign 
countries were not likely to grant any aid unless 
such a severance were contemplated. This idea of 
obtaining aid abroad was coming to be a favourite 
one, and the scheme which obtained most approval 
was that of turning to France, whose heart was still 
burning to avenge the loss of India and Canada. It 
shocked some minds at first, but once admitted it 
made way. 

On the 7th June, 1776, the delegates from Virginia, 
who had already moved for the declaration of inde- 
pendence, moved in Congress that measures should 
be taken immediately for securing the assistance of 
foreign powers. A committee was appointed for 
drawing up the Declaration of Independence, a com- 
mittee composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and Thomas 
Jefferson, the great Francophile, whom the others 

75 



George Washington 

entrusted with the work. Jefferson's ' Declaration 
of Independence' was adopted substantially as he 
drafted it, although it went through a fierce fire of 
criticism, and it is one of the most vital political 
documents of history. Congress ended its momen- 
tous debate on the 4th July, 1776, 'Independence 
Day,' and adopted most of the revolutionary propo- 
sitions of Thomas Jefferson. We will quote, without 
comment, a large portion of this famous Declara- 
tion: 

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, ' it ran, after a short introduc- 
tion, 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and 
to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, 
and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely 
to effect their safety and happiness. . . . When a long train of abuses 
and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design 
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty 
to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future 
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; such is 
now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems 
of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a 
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object 
the establishment of an absolute tj'-ranny over these States.' 

Here a list of the injuries and usurpations of George III is 'submitted 
to a candid world' — refusing his assent to wholesome and necessary laws, 
dissolving the Houses of Representatives 'for opposing with manly 
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people; refusing to allow other 
Assemblies to be elected after he had thus dissolved the old ones, whereby 
the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the 
people at large for their exercise'; discouraging immigrations and so 
keeping the population down; keeping up a standing army in the colonies 
in time of peace; and making the military power independent of and 
superior to the ci^Til power. 'He has combined with others to subject 
us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by 
our laws, giving his assent to their acts a pretended legislation for quar- 

76 



The Declaration of Independence 

tering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a 
mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit 
on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all 
parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for 
depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury; for trans- 
porting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; for abolishing 
the free system of English laws in a neighbouring pro^^nce, estab- 
lishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, 
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing 
the same absolute rule into these colonies; for taking away our charters, 
abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the powers 
of our governments; for suspending our own legislatures and declaring 
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.' 

'He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his pro- 
tection and waging war against us.' 

A list of unparental actions follows, for Great Britain had been 'deaf 
to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.' 

Jefiferson's next sentences were not adopted by 
Congress for the Declaration, but they are of inter- 
est: 

*We must endeavour to forget our former love for them, and hold them 
as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We 
might have been a free and great people together; but a communication 
of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, 
since they will have it! The road to happiness and to glory is open to 
us too. We will tread it apart from them.' 

The Declaration ran somewhat differently here: 

'We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our 
separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in 
war, in peace friends.' 

The famous document thus concluded: 

*We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the 
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and de- 
clare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, jree and 
independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great 

77 



George Washington 

jBritain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and in- 
dependent i-tates they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, con- 
tract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things 
which independent states may of right do. 

'And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the 
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.' 

The news that the deed was done, and that by 
the action of Congress the long-talked of separation 
from Great Britain had become a fact, to which a 
large number of the colonists had engaged their hon- 
our, was carried all over Philadelphia and its suburbs 
by the 'Bell of Liberty,' a bell of English manufac- 
ture fixed in the State-House and strangely enough 
bearing the appropriate inscription: 'Proclaim lib- 
erty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabi- 
tants thereof.' 

The revolutionaries in New York, on hearing the 
news, gave way to various acts of jubilation, includ- 
ing the destruction of a leaden statue of George III 
on the Bowling Green. It was broken up into bul- 
lets 'to be used in the cause of independence.' 

Washington was at New York when he received a 
copy of the Declaration of Independence and was 
informed that Congress had actually adopted it. He 
was extremely glad and at 6 o'clock in the evening 
of the 9th July, 1776, he had it read to the troops at 
the head of each brigade. 'The General hopes,' he 
said in the Order of the Day, 'that this important 
event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer 
and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as know- 
ing that now the peace and safety of his country de- 
pend, under God, solely on the successes of our 
arms.* 

78 



The Declaration of Independence 

It was a dark and sad day for Great Britain, for 
many people when they came to hear of it thought 
that an irreparable blow had been dealt her. The 
Declaration of Independence was in no way accept- 
ed as ultimate, but it was realised that the mother 
couhtry stood in danger of losing for ever what had 
come to seem of late years (in Chatham's words) the 
brightest jewel in the Crown. 

It was some time before the news got to Great 
Britain, but in America it flew from town to town in 
a very short space of time and caused frantic excite- 
ment. The rebels at least had little doubt that a 
new State had started on its course, and a few of 
them, like Jefferson, believed that a great future lay 
before it, but even Jefferson, we think, would have 
been astounded if he could have seen his country 
after the course of a century. Which of the found- 
ers of the American republic would not have been 
amazed if he could have foreseen that in a little over 
a hundred years' time it would be the equal of the 
oldest and most famous States of Europe.'' What in 
still another hundred years will this splendid child 
of Great Britain have become? Through the United 
States of America, it may well be that the future of 
civilisation is to the British race. 



79 



CHAPTER IX: The JVar of 

Independence {177 6- 17 81) 

y4 FTER the evacuation of Boston by the Brit- 
/\ ish troops, Washington had left Cambridge 
/ \ for New York, where the next act in the 
drama was to be played. As Lee had been 
making wholesale arrests of 'Tories' in that city and 
his views of the sacrosanctity of the Governor were 
well known. Governor Tryon and his friends had 
thought it prudent to take refuge on a British man- 
of-war in the harbour. 

Washington arrived in the city on 13th April, 1776, 
and the position appeared to him, and with reason, 
much more desperate than that at Boston had done. 
In fact the tables were to be turned here. Within 
the city were the American patriots, without a great 
besieging force. His one encouragement, one that 
never left him, was the thought of the justness of 
his Cause. 

While the Americans at Philadelphia were busy 
with the Declaration of Independence, Great Brit- 
ain, little dreaming of this awful blow awaiting her, 
had decided, only too late, to make a supreme effort. 
A large force was to be sent out to reduce the col- 
onists if necessary, but the plan had a silver lining, 
for Lord Howe, who was given the command of this 

80 



War of Independence {17 7 6- 81) 

expedition, was instructed to try the effect of offers 
of compromise and reconciliation. 

On leaving Boston, Lord Howe, on his side, had 
gone to Canada to obtain reinforcements, and he 
now arrived off New York with his brother. Admiral 
Howe, a few days after the signing of the Declaration 
of Independence. In reply to his request, John Ad- 
ams, Benjamin Franklin and others went to Staten 
Island to confer with him, but the chief object of 
their visit was to tell him of the step taken, and as- 
sure him politely of the colonists' intention to abide 
by their action. They departed, leaving Howe clear 
that his instructions were so much waste paper and 
that he should now have to fight to a finish. 

Both sides strained every nerve, and — another 
step that had cost a good deal of debate — Franklin 
was despatched to beg help from the old enemy of 
the colonists and of England, France. Washington 
solemnly addressed his army, saying: 

*The time is now near at hand which must deter- 
mine whether Americans are to be free men or 
slaves; whether they are to have any property they 
can call their own; whether their houses and farms 
are to be pillaged and destroyed and themselves con- 
signed to a state of wretchedness from which no hu- 
man efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn 
miUions will now depend, under God, on the cour- 
age and conduct of this army. . . . We have 
therefore to resolve to conquer or to die.' 

In August began the duel for New York with the 
British resolve to capture Brooklyn Heights on Long 
Island, commanding the city. To prevent this, 
Washington sent 5,000 men — all he could spare — to 

81 



George Washington 

liold the Heights, and on the 21st 15,000 British 
troops proceeded to the attack. For seven days the 
struggle continued and just when the Americans, 
with nearly half their men lost, saw nothing before 
them but surrender, a storm came to their rescue and 
they were able to get away almost unharmed. Un- 
der cover of the darkness Washington got the detach- 
ment away from the Heights and.recrossed the river 
from Long Island to New York. For 48 hours he 
never closed his eyes and scarcely dismounted from 
his horse, and so achieved what has always been 
considered an almost miraculous retreat. Of course, 
it meant leaving the Heights for the British to occu- 
py, and it then became impossible to hold New York, 
just as the British had found it impossible to hold 
Boston when Dorchester Heights were captured by 
the Americans. Both Washington and Putnam, 
neither of them fond of half-measures, and both 
having staked their all, in lands and hopes, on this 
gigantic combat, wanted to destroy New York be- 
fore evacuating it, as it was terrible to think what a 
splendid centre it would be for the British and what 
comfortable and secure winter quarters it offered 
them. Its possession meant an indefinite prolonga- 
tion of the combat. The Commander-in-Chief, how- 
ever, thought it right to mention the matter to Con- 
gress and Congress could not frame its heart to con- 
sent. There was therefore nothing for it but to get 
out with as little loss as possible, under the guns of 
the foe, and this was another record achievement of 
Washington ; nothing but his personal influence, even 
to the extent of facing the fugitive with pointed pis- 
tols, saved the retreat from being a flight of terrified 

82 



War of Independence [177 6-81) 

men. These two manoeuvres, the rescue of the de- 
tachment on Brooklyn Heights and the retreat from 
New York, perhaps won Washington more renown 
in the British army, where such achievements were 
duly appreciated, than among his fellow-countrymen, 
who were inclined to look principally at the facts of 
losses and gains, and as unskilled citizens rather than 
professional soldiers. 

The retreat did not end with the evacuation of 
New York, for the army was then gradually pushed 
up the Hudson River, and the colonists began to be 
discontented with Washington. He wrote to his 
brother: *I am wearied almost to death with the 
retrograde movement of things ; and I solemnly pro- 
test that a pecuniary reward of £20,000 a year would 
not induce me to undergo what I do, and, after all, 
perhaps to lose my character; as it is impossible un- 
der such a variety of distressing circumstances to 
conduct matters agreeably to public expectation.' 

He still believed in ultimate success. 

When the British attempted to surround him be- 
tween the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers, a fur- 
ther retreat had to be made in the utmost haste, and 
this time a large quantity of stores and ammunition 
had to be abandoned. Lee would not come to his 
aid and the retreat was continued to Trenton. The 
British thus held New York, nearly the whole of the 
Jerseys and part of Pennsylvania, while the colo- 
nists' great plan of raising Canada against British rule 
had failed miserably. Burgoyne had suppressed any 
tendency to revolt in Canada, and was now to be 
expected to descend with his army on the revolted 
colonies. So hopeless did the American cause seem 

83 



George JVashington 

that all but the most ardent returned to their alle- 
giance to Great Britain. Washington anticipated 
that a time would come for retreat into Virginia and 
ultimately for retirement across the Alleghany 
Mountains, and unlike so many other rich colonists 
with everything at stake he determined never to 
surrender, never to make terms, never to waver be- 
fore British offers of reconciliation. 'If it becomes 
necessary,' he said proudly to one who criticised 
him, 'we will retreat over every river and mountain 
in America.' 

His immediate fear was that Philadelphia would 
fall, and 'Old Put,' the 'Grand Old Man' of the 
Cause, was placed in command there, while Con- 
gress adjourned to Baltimore. 

Full of wearing anxiety but ever hoping that the 
country would send him reinforcements, Washing- 
ton in another marvellous retreat crossed the Dela- 
ware. Thomas Payne tells us how: 'With a hand- 
ful of men we sustained an orderly retreat for near 
an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all 
our field-pieces, the greater part of our stores, and 
had four rivers to pass. None can say that our re- 
treat was precipitate, for we were three weeks in 
performing it,' that the country might have time to 
come in. Twice we marched back to meet the 
enemy.' 

All this time, Lee was not dealing fairly with 
Washington, but dawdling about with his troops, 
and many of the colonial party rejoiced when he was 
surprised in a tavern by British cavalry and taken 
prisoner. Washington was perhaps more vexed than 
grieved at the incident, due, as he remarked, to Lee's 

84 




JVar of Independence {177 6-81) 

own folly and imprudence. It helped to show Con- 
gress what Lee was and to restore to Washington 
that confidence he enjoyed before the fall of New 
York. Reinforcements began to come in and he was 
granted extraordinary powers of dictatorship. The 
strengthening of his hands led him to decide on a 
surprise attack on the foe, Howe and Cornwallis 
having gone into winter quarters at New York, it 
not being the practice in that age to fight in the 
winter. 

Christmas night was fixed on for the recrossing of 
the Delaware, and while Washington recrossed the 
dangerously swollen stream, amid floating ice-blocks, 
in the dead of the night and in a tempest of snow 
and wind, above Trenton, Putnam and troops from 
Philadelphia crossed it below Burlington. Generals 
Ewing and Cadwalader, who were also to cross, 
could not do so. Hessian troops in the British ser- 
vice were guarding the river, and they were com- 
pletely taken aback by the reappearance of Wash- 
ington at this season, Trenton at once fell into the 
Americans' hands, with over 1,000 persons and large 
quantities of stores and artillery. Something like a 
panic followed, and Howe at once sent Cornwallis off 
to Princeton to bring troops out of their winter quar- 
ters. He imagined that he would catch Washington 
when he came up with him at the Assanpink on the 
2d of January, 1777. As he was retiring for the 
night, he said: 

'The old fox can't make his escape now; for, with 
the Delaware behind him so filled with floating ice 
that he cannot cross, we have him completely sur- 
rounded. To-morrow morning, fresh and strong, we 

85 



George Washington 

will fall upon him and take him and his ragamuffins 
all at once.' In vain those who knew Washington 
assured him that there was little likelihood of Wash- 
ington, whatever happened, being found in the morn- 
ing. Cornwallis knew his ground and went to sleep 
in faith and peace. In the morning the British 
found the stream hard frozen and Washington and 
his 'ragamuffins' gone. The ground between here 
and Princeton, which had been almost an impassable 
bog the night before, hardened as if macadamised, 
and Washington hastened on to Princeton, where 
after a fierce fight the British garrison surrendered 
to him. He would then have proceeded to take the 
great depot at New Brunswick, and that he would do 
so was the first sad thought of Cornwallis on awaking 
that cold January morning, but Washington's force 
was too exhausted to carry out this tempting plan. 
However, the two victories, Trenton and Princeton, 
had an enormous effect on public opinion. Washing- 
ton was winning for himself in Great Britain the 
fame of a great rebel leader like Spartacus — for the 
eighteenth century, as we have seen, was fond of 
classical allusions — or even of an heroic Hannibal, 
doomed in the end to failure, but meanwhile threaten- 
ing the entire British Empire with disruption. In 
America, on the other hand, and on the Continent of 
Europe, he was likened, not to the invader Hannibal, 
but to the consul Fabius, whose retreats and delays 
saved Rome from Hannibal and have been famous 
through all ages and times. The brightest hopes were 
entertained of his ultimate success, and the French in 
particular began to give lavish if unofficial aid. 
Beaumarchais, the author of The Marriage of Fi- 

86 



War of Independence (1776-81) 

garo, organised expeditions of aid, and tlie young 
Marquis de Lafayette came over in person at this 
point, and met Washington at Philadelphia, whither 
Washington proceeded after his exploits at Prince- 
ton. Lafayette had been attracted to the revolu- 
tionary cause by Frankhn, who found aristocratic 
France, on the eve of the revolution that was to 
bring their own order to an end, ripe for sympathy 
with a movement that put into action the social and 
political creeds of their beloved Rousseau. Rous- 
seau had preached the doctrine of the 'contrat so- 
cial/ a contract between governors and governed 
for the benefit of the latter, and the consequent 
right of the people to resume the sovereignty they 
had confided to their rulers in trust. The American 
colonies of Great Britain had just resumed this au- 
thority, so long vested in the sovereigns of Great 
Britain, and France was submerged in a wave of en- 
thusiasm for this magnificent deed, now apparently 
to proceed to a triumphant issue. It was the irony 
of fate that sympathy and help should come to the 
American democracy from an aristocracy that was 
so soon to rue the day when it had first lent an ear 
to revolutionary doctrines and had listened so fondly 
and so lightly to the preaching of the Rights of Man. 
It was soon to learn that it is a matter of extreme 
peril to touch the foundations of government. The 
French aristocracy carried out a very great work in 
extreme lightness of heart and without in the least 
realising the inevitable results of its enthusiastic 
speculations — results for which it was soon called 
upon to pay with its best blood. Meanwhile, it gave 
priceless aid to the Americans. 

87 



George JVashington 

Great Britain formed a plan of campaign for 1777 
that should have brought America to her feet, name- 
ly for Burgoyne to march south from Canada to the 
upper Hudson River and join Howe, who was to 
come North to meet him, and thus cut the rebel 
army in two. Unfortunately for the success of this 
masterly scheme, Burgoyne suffered a disastrous de- 
feat on his way at Bennington, where the Republi- 
can General Stark, despatched by Washington to 
check Burgoyne, is said to have spurred his men to 
great things. 'Come on, boys, and conquer the Red- 
coats,' he is reported to have cried, *or Molly Stark 
will be a widow!' The Republicans utilised the 
moral effects of this battle to turn the tables and 
cut off Burgoyne. Howe, for his part, was on his 
way to join Burgoyne when Washington met him at 
the River Brandywine on 8th September, with only 
11,000 men to his 18,000, and on the 11th the Brit- 
ish general inflicted a signal defeat on Washington. 
A panic followed on the Republican side, and Con- 
gress again fled from Philadelphia, but Washington 
merely retreated, with his usual calm patience and 
resignation. He stopped at Germantown and plan- 
ned another surprise attack, on Howe, on the night 
of 3d October, but after a briUiant manoeuvre a 
heavy fog baffled him and he was obliged to fall 
back again, whereupon Philadelphia was compelled 
to submit to the entry of the British army. There 
was much wailing in America over the fate of this 
city; only the wise Franklin, when informed that 
Howe had taken Philadelphia, replied mysteriously: 
'No! Philadelphia has taken Howe ! ' 

And so it proved. Hardly had the city fallen than 

88 



TVar of Independence {177 6-81) 

news arrived that Burgoyne, lacking the aid Howe 
should have brought him, had surrendered with his 
whole army on 6th October, 1777, to the American 
General Gates at Saratoga. 

Making the best of a bad job, Howe took up win- 
ter quarters at Philadelphia, and made himself as 
comfortable as he could, while Washington estab- 
lished himself at Valley Forge, twenty miles away, 
to watch the enemy and to endure all the hardships 
of cold, privation and disease among his men. It is 
told that one day, observing the critical condition of 
a famished soldier, he said to him: 

'Go to my table and help yourself!' 

'I cannot,' replied the soldier, 'I am on guard.* 
Taking his rifle from him, Washington just said 
*Go!' indicating that he would take his place. The 
men were without clothes, without blankets, with- 
out shoes (so much so that their marches might be 
traced by their bleeding feet), without food, without 
shelter but the huts they built, and yet they had 
come to suffer these things without a murmur. They 
had caught the spirit of Washington's patriotism, 
and also they had become inspired by that feeling 
which made the soldiers of Caesar and Napoleon 
march on through whatever hardships and afflictions 
might befall them so long as their General bade 
them. 

England declared war on France in 1778 and so 
ended an impossible position, and as there had ex- 
isted throughout the eighteenth century a 'Family 
Compact' between the Bourbon sovereigns of France 
and Spain, England now had to face the united attack 
of those powers, and this fact was the salvation of 

89 



George JVashtngton 

America and gradually transformed the nature of 
the struggle. It amounted indeed to tying Great 
Britain's hands; it gave infinite encouragement to 
the Americans; and the substantial aid of France in 
America was the decisive factor in her winning the 
war. When it arrived, however, it seemed as if noth- 
ing could save America, for Cornwallis with the help 
of the brilliant cavalry officer Tarleton had overrun 
the Carolinas and Georgia, and in spite of minor 
successes and acts of desperate valour, the Republi- 
cans were steadily losing. There came, moreover, 
the treason of Benedict Arnold, once beloved and 
trusted by Washington. After long and traitorous 
correspondence, Benedict Arnold stole over into the 
British camp and accepted a position in the British 
army that was fighting his fellow-countrymen, be- 
traying at the same time all that he knew of the Re- 
publican plans and resources, and arranging to hand 
over West Point, where Washington had placed him 
in command. He used to meet Major Andre, the 
emissary of Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded 
Howe as Commander-in-Chief, at midnight, and he 
drew up a plan for a feigned attack by the British 
and apparent surrender by himself. Andre was cap- 
tured in one of these missions by three American 
yeomen, and promptly hanged as a spy, while his 
papers, including those compromising Arnold, were 
sent to Washington. Arnold managed to escape, 
and received a general's commission in the British 
army and proved one of the bitterest foes of his old 
comrades in arms. He has been called the 'Judas 
Iscariot' of the Cause. 

Great Britain after Saratoga had offered every 

90 



JVar of Independence {1776-81) 

possible concession to her revolted colonies, but 
when France and Spain came on to the scene the 
day of reconciliation was felt to be over, and both 
parties felt also that the end was approaching. 
Great Britain had her hands ever fuller. The French 
sent ever increasing aid to the Americans. Rocham- 
beau landed with an army in 1780 and finally the 
French West Indian fleet in 1781 appeared in the 
Chesapeake under De Grasse. Weary of waiting 
Washington may well have been, but this would 
never have nerved him to the great coup he was 
now to make, namely the capture of Cornwallis in 
Yorktown. He saw clearly that the tnoment had 
come, that after alL this weary time when all he 
could do was to preserve his army and retire, the 
naval assistance which De Grasse gave him permit- 
ted him at last to strike. Calling at Mount Vernon 
for the first time since the beginning of the war, he 
bade farewell to his wife, telling her that ' he was on 
his way to seek a battle, an unequal though glorious 
contest from which he might never return.' 

On the 30th September he and Rochambeau, the 
French commander, held the heights above York- 
town, and soon the French fleet under De Grasse 
filled the harbour. On the 6th October he himself 
put a match to the first cannon and a bombardment 
terrific for those times started. Washington's ex- 
posure of his person in warfare was always extraor- 
dinary, and never more than in this bombardment, 
in spite of the expostulations of his officers. When 
an aide-de-camp ventured to remark that he was in 
a very exposed spot, he remarked somewhat shortly: 

'If you think so, you are at liberty to stand back!' 
91 



George Washington 

As at the time of Braddock's rout in his youth, balls 
flew round him and he stood unharmed, a charmed, 
heroic figure, in the thickest of the fray. Washing- 
ton in a battle was a sight to call forth memories of 
heroes of old. 

The 17th October, 1781, was the greatest day in 
his life, and perhaps the happiest, for on that day he 
received a flag of truce from Cornwallis, who could 
hold out no longer. On the 19th Cornwallis accept- 
ed his conditions of surrender. Who can tell his 
feelings at this moment! The weary years of war 
and misery were over; the separation from Great 
Britain was an irrevocable fact, her stern parental 
authority was thrown off for ever, and who could say 
what would be the future of his country? Not 
Washington! He was no political prophet that he 
could foresee the glorious future of the United States. 
He only knew that he and his fellow citizens had 
won something very precious. Liberty, and that in 
their own hands it now lay to make that Liberty a 
permanent possession. 

*My brave fellows,' he said to the soldiers, *let no 
sensation of satisfaction for the triumphs you have 
gained induce you to insult your fallen enemy. Let 
no shouting, no clamorous huzzaing, increase their 
mortification. Posterity will huzza for us.* 

Cornwallis, unable to face the music, pleaded in- 
disposition, and O'Hara carried out the surrender. 
The garrison of 7,000 marched out between the ser- 
ried rows of American and French troops and sur- 
rendered to Major-General Lincoln. He conducted 
them to a field where the ceremony of grounding 
their arms was carried out, and twenty-eight British 

92 



War of Independence [1776-81) 

captains handed over the twenty-eight flags of their 
companies. 

A courier was then sent post-haste to the Congress 
at Philadelphia. Arriving after midnight, as the 
night-watchmen were going their rounds, he gave 
them the word, and soon the cry: 

'One o'clock — Cornwallis is taken!' roused the in- 
habitants from their beds. The first incredulity 
gave way to rapture, and the citizens began to ring 
the city bells and let off artillery. Only the sick 
stayed in the house that night. Immediately after 
daybreak Congress assembled and heard Washing- 
ton's letter read. Great rejoicing followed and en- 
thusiastic votes of thanks were passed to Washing- 
ton, Rochambeau, De Grasse and the officers of both 
armies. 

Washington with his usual prudence expostulated 
that the war was not yet over, but as a matter of 
fact it was, at least so far as America was concerned. 

At Home, the news produced the height of sorrow. 
To Lord North it was like 'a ball in the breast.' He 
opened his arms and paced wildly up and down the 
apartment, exclaiming : 

'Oh God! It is all over!' He was compelled to 
resign, and Rockingham succeeded him as Prime 
Minister and began negotiations for a treaty cf 
peace with America. 

By the Treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th No- 
vember, 1782, Great Britain recognised the inde- 
pendence of her thirteen rebel colonies. All the 
forts were evacuated and the army returned to Brit- 
ain, whereupon Washington disbanded the Republi- 
can army. 

93 



George JVashington 

'With a heart full of love and gratitude,' he said, 
'I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish 
that your latter days may be as prosperous and 
happy as your former have been glorious and honour- 
able. I cannot come to each of you to take my 
leave, but shall be obliged if each of you will come 
and take me by the hand.' 

As the soldiers advanced one by one, the tears 
started into Washington's eyes, and the long cere- 
mony took place in utter silence. 



94 



CHAPTER X: First Citizen 

WASHINGTON after disbanding the army 
went to Annapolis to surrender his com- 
mission to Congress, and he had a 
triumphal march thither. Every town, 
hamlet and farm he passed cheered him wildly, and 
firing of cannon, bands, flags all acclaimed the 
Father of his Country, the founder of American 
independence. Congress received him with unre- 
served enthusiasm and distinction. 

To a certain extent there was reason in his fears 
that the War of Independence was not yet over, as 
but for his personal action the expulsion of the Brit- 
ish would have been but an episode in long and 
bloody struggles. We know only too well to-day how 
hard are the steps of revolutions, what they cost to 
wage and how barren their victories may be, for it 
is easier to pull down than to build up. The bril- 
liant soldier of fortune is common enough, but the 
constructive statesman with a personality strong 
enough to give his views weight is the rarest and 
most precious of people. If Washington had been a 
demagogue, the thirteen colonies now independent 
might never have been able to agree on a federal 
constitution, and either he might have established 
his own personal rule, like Caesar or Napoleon, or, 
more probably, Britain and France and even Spain, 
might have once more matched their might together 

d5 



George IVashington 

and the strongest taken the old British colonies as 
their prize. The American revolution was one of 
the few successful democratic revolutions of the 
modern world, and it was successful because it was 
led by a man like Washington, who had no private 
ambition or revenge to satisfy, who had no wish to 
destroy for the sake of destroying, who knew what 
bounds must be set to liberty, and who knew, final- 
ly, the limits of what the State can do for the indi- 
vidual. He never encouraged his followers to think 
that every ill flesh is heir to would be abolished when 
America shook off British rule; he never incited 
them to madness by descriptions of their wrongs. 
He was no talker, and if he has left behind him none 
of those magnanimous sayings which endear a hero 
to posterity and impose on his own age, he has done 
none of the harm that with a touch of the tempera- 
ment of the actor or orator he would assuredly have 
done. His countrymen have reason to be sincerely 
grateful that their Founder had no touch of pic- 
turesque Csesarism in his composition. 

Immediately after laying down his command, he 
retired to Mount Vernon, where he announced his 
intention of finishing his days in the cultivation of 
his estate. He began the old pre-war round of rising 
at four o'clock in the morning and seeing to the affairs 
of his plantation, and visiting his friends, but he 
could not help keeping a more watchful eye than 
ever before on the trend of pubhc events, and he was 
more alive to the need for developing American re- 
sources. Among the many great public measures 
which he supported was a plan for improving the 
navigation of the James and Potomac Rivers, and 

96 



First Citizen 

when the General Assembly wished to present him 
with shares in the profitable new concern, he re- 
fused, saying: 

'For the sake of money, which indeed I never 
coveted from my country, I may lose the power to 
do her some service which may be worth more than 
all money.' The value of the shares, therefore, was 
by his wish appropriated to a University within the 
bounds of the present District of Columbia and to a 
college subsequently called Washington College in 
Rockbridge County. As ever he gave much to the 
poor. 

But this rural peace was not for Washington. 
The thirteen colonies needed a constitution. There 
was no entity to treat with foreign powers, there 
was no taxing body, and there was no supreme legis- 
lature; and discharged soldiers and other unruly 
spirits were therefore beginning to use their talents 
in unlawful directions. Congress had done its work 
and had no power to rule the State; indeed there 
was no State. 

So strong was local feeling in America at that 
time, that few people wished for a central State, and 
it took the masses of the people some time to see 
that a federation was necessary. What powers of 
cqfntrol it was desirable to give the new central 
State to be established was not decided at that time 
nor ever completely in the history of the United 
States, for before ever the Union came into exist- 
ence we may see the two parties of Federalists and 
'State Rights' or 'Republicans' or 'Democratic Re- 
publicans' as this latter party came to be called 
later, and later again 'Democrats.' The Federalists 

97 



George JVashington 

wanted a strong central State, the Democrats want- 
ed large measures of local self-government. 

A Constituent Assembly met at Philadelphia in 
1787 and in a few months' time drew up the consti- 
tution of the United States, much as it is to-day. It 
was formed in outline after the English pattern of 
three Estates, — but instead of King, Lords and 
Commons, there was to be President, Senate and 
House of Representatives. The original constitu- 
tion provided an Electoral College, (still retained 
although with modified functions), to elect the 
President. The Senators were to be chosen by 
the legislatures of the States, and each State was 
to be equally represented. They were to be elected 
for six years, a third of their number resigning in 
rotation and giving place to a new third portion. 
The members of the House of Representatives 
were to be chosen directly by the people on the 
basis of almost universal male suffrage, and to 
hold oflace for two years only. The President was 
to hold oflBce for four years, when he might be re- 
elected to a further term of service. As a conces- 
sion to 'States' Rights' the various States which 
composed the Union were made independent except 
for foreign policy, taxation, coinage and certain leg- 
islative principles. 

Ever since the drafting of the Declaration of In- 
dependence, Jefferson had been busy on the penal 
code, and he substantially accepted that of Great 
Britain as he found it, being specially careful not to 
alter words and phrases which time had consecrated 
and lawyers had long agreed to interpret after a 
certain fashion; and to this practical sagacity of 

98 



First Citizen 

Jefferson the United States owes a great debt. Some 
features, however, and important features, of the 
EngHsh law were completely altered. The descent 
of property to the eldest son was abolished, for 
America did not want a landed aristocracy. The 
death sentence was limited to the blackest crimes, 
and religious toleration was extended not only to 
all Christians, as some people wanted, but to 'Jew 
and Gentile, Christian and Mahometan, Hindoo and 
infidel of every denomination,' as Thomas Jefferson 
triumphantly relates. Jefferson wanted to abolish 
slavery, to introduce compulsory elementary educa- 
tion and many other revolutionary measures, but 
the times were not yet ripe for such innovations. 

When the moment came for choosing a President 
of the United States of America, there was no doubt 
as to the people's choice. George Washington was 
inaugurated therefore on 30th April, 1789, and his 
sensations on thus being dragged once more from 
his peaceful home at Mount Vernon he thus de- 
scribed in a letter to a friend: 

'My movement to the chair of Government will 
be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a cul- 
prit who is going to his place of execution, so unwill- 
ing am I, in the evening of life, nearly consumed in 
public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of 
difficulties, without the competency of political skill, 
abilities, and inclination which are necessary to 
manage the helm.' 

Another triumphal journey, in his own carriage- 
and-four, from Mount Vernon to New York, a royal 
reception in that city, then state processions in a 
chariot-and-six with out-riders and liveried servants, 

99 



George Washington 

and then the great ceremony of his inauguration. 
His speech was a notable one. 'When I contem- 
plate,' he said, 'the interposition of Providence, as it 
was visibly manifested in guiding us through the 
Revolution, in preparing us for the reception of a 
general government, and in conciliating the good- 
will of the people of America towards one another 
after its adoption, I feel most oppressed and almost 
overwhelmed with a sense of the Divine munificence. 
I feel that nothing is due to my personal agency in 
all those complicated and wonderful events except 
what can simply be attributed to the exertions of an 
honest zeal for the good of my country.' 

In 1790 the seat of Government was removed 
from New York to Philadelphia, but Washington 
wished it to be established at the mouth of the Po- 
tomac, as it ultimately was — at 'Washington.' 

Chateaubriand, one of the most ardent disciples 
of Rousseau, came over to America, the land of his 
dreams, the dwelling-place as he and his friends im- 
agined of Man unsophisticated and spoiled by civili- 
sation. 'There is nothing eld in America,' he says, 
'but the woods, the children of the earth, and Lib- 
erty, mother of every human society: that is well 
worth monuments and ancestors!' His stories of 
his adventures have not quite the validity of legal 
documents, but he had a charming literary style 
and he represents almost as well as Jefferson the 
ideals that lay in the hearts of many of the Ameri- 
can revolutionaries. He relates at length an inter- 
view he claims to have had with Washington in 
1791,— three years after the fall of the Bastille and 
outbreak of the French Revolution. 

100 



First Citizen 

'When I arrived at Philadelphia,' he says, 'the 
great Washington was not tliere. I was obliged to 
wait for a fortnight. He returned. I saw him pass 
in a carriage drawn with rapidity by four spirited 
horses, driven four-in-hand. Washington, accord- 
ing to my ideas, was necessarily Cincinnatus; Cin- 
cinnatus in a carriage disturbed somewhat my Ro- 
man Republic of 296 B. C. Could the Dictator 
Washington be anything but a rustic goading for- 
ward his oxen and holding the plough-share? But 
when I presented myself with my letter of introduc- 
tion at the house of this great man, I found all the 
simplicity of the old Roman.' 

In 1793 Washington, again much against his will, 
was reelected President for a further period of four 
years, and in this second term of office he made 
treaties with foreign countries and with the Indians, 
and dealt with all the important measures that 
arose, like a trained sta^tesman and administrator. 
He got through an enormous amount of work, and 
he required his staff to work hard. He gave no 
munificent rewards to his adherents, like Napoleon, 
and what acts of generosity he performed were al- 
ways out of his owii money. 

He said once about a friend: *As George Wash- 
ington I would do this man any kindness in my 
power; but as President of the United States I can 
do nothing.' He created a tradition of public faith- 
fulness, and parsimony even, for his successors, and 
he also created a traditional limit for the President's 
term of office by retiring at the end of his second 
period of office. 

Refusing every representation from his friends, he 
101 



George Washington 

returned to Mount Vernon, there to end his days 
three years later. 

Contracting a chill, he died within a few days, on 
December, 1799, and was buried in the family vault 
at Mount Vernon. 

His death seemed a national calamity, and the 
whole country went into mourning. Nor was the 
sorrow confined to America. Napoleon ordered his 
army to attach crepe to all its standards and flags, 
and the British admiral Lord Bridport, when he 
heard the news, had his flag lowered to half-mast. 

As he desired in his farewell address to Congress, 
when definitely laying down his powers, the free na- 
tion which was the work of his hands has been 
'sacredly maintained,' and that largely because the 
American nation have remembered his counsels. ' In 
all the changes to which you may be invited,' he 
told them, 'remember that time and habit are at 
least as necessary to fix the true character of gov- 
ernments as of other human institutions; that ex- 
perience is the surest standard by which to test the 
real tendency of the existing constitution of a coun- 
try; . . . and remember especially that for the 
efficient management of your common interests, in 
a country so extensive as ours, a government of as 
much vigour as is consistent with the perfect secur- 
ity of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will 
find in such a Government ... its surest guar- 
dian.' 

For foreign policy, his last counsels to his people 
were to steer clear alike of friendships and enmities 
with other countries, to make themselves strong and 
hold aloof from the entanglements of the Old World. 

102 



First Citizen 

* There can be no greater error,' he said, 'than to ex- 
pect or calculate upon real favours from nation to 
nation.' 

Chateaubriand made a very just contrast of Wash- 
ington and Napoleon, the two great generals of the 
two new democracies. The genius of the latter, he 
said, seemed of a higher flight than that of the for- 
mer. Washington did not surpass human stature, 
or astonish mankind by deeds beyond their compre- 
hension. He did not travel with winged speed from 
Egypt to Austria and from Spain to Russia, and 
defeat the most celebrated captains of the age and 
nations old and renowned. 'He defends himself 
with a handful of citizens in a country without his- 
torical memories and without fame. . . . Some- 
thing silent envelops the actions of Washington; he 
acts slowly; he seems to feel that he is entrusted 
with the liberty of the future, and he fears to com- 
promise it. Not his own destinies inspire this hero 
of a new sort, but those of his country; he will not 
stake that which does not belong to him. But from 
this profound obscurity what light is to burst! 
Search the unknown woods where Washington's 
sword shone, and what will you find.'' Tombs? No, 
a world! Washington left the United States for 
trophy on his battle-field. . . . This man, who 
made little personal impression because he was nat- 
ural and in just proportions, merged his own exist- 
ence in that of his country; his glory is the common 
inheritance of growing civilisation; his fame rises 
like one of those sanctuaries whence flows an un- 
failing spring for the People.' 

This is a similar note to that struck by a later 
103 



George JVashington 

President of the United States, Dr. Woodrow Wil- 
son, in a speech on Independence Day, 1918, at the 
tomb of Washington: 

*From this green hillside,' he said, 'we also ought 
to be able to see with comprehending eyes that world 
that lies about us, and should conceive anew the 
purposes that must set men free.' 



104 



Sources 

The bibliography of Washington is immense, but 

comprehensive Hsts are to be found in: 
Baker, — Bibliotheca Washingtoniana (1889). 

Mention may here be made of : 

Washington Irving, — George Washington (Geoffrey 
Crayon edition of the Works, 1881), which is still 
a standard life in the United States. 

H. C. Lodge,— George Washington (1889 and 1898). 

B. T. Thayer, — George JVashington (1894). 

WooDROw Wilson, — George Washington (1896). 

American Historical Review. 

Among modern histories of the United States re- 
ferred to may be mentioned: 

Those of President Wilson and Cecil Chester- 
ton. 

Among the most interesting books relating to other 
Fathers of the Revolution who appear in this his- 
tory are: 

Franklin, — Autobiography (J. M. Dent & Co., 1905, 
containing excellent Introduction, etc.). 

Wirt, — Patrick Henry (1817). 

The best edition of Washington's writings is that of 
W. C. Ford (1889-1893). 



105 



Extracts from 
Washington'^ s Writings 



Rules of Conduct 



(Tiiese rules are taken from Washington's schoolboj' exercise books. 
They show the standard of good manners and morals of his time.) 

1. Every action in company ought to be with some 
sign of respect to those present. 

2. In the presence of others sing not to yourself with 
a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet. 

3. Sleep not when others speak, sit not when others 
stand, speak not when you should hold your peace, walk 
not when others stop. 

4. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; 
jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; 
lean not on any one. 

5. Be no flatterer; neither play with any one that 
delights not to be played with. 

6. Read no letters, books, or papers in company; but 
when there is a necessity for doing it, you must ask leave. 
Come not near the books or writings of any one so as to 
read them, unless desired, nor give your opinion of them 
unasked; also, look not nigh when another is writing a 
letter. 

7. Let your countenance be pleasant, but in serious 
matters somewhat grave. 

8. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, 
though he were your enemy. 

9. When you meet with one of greater quality than 
yourself, stop and retire, especially if it be at a door or 
any strait place, to give way for him to pass. 

10. They that are in dignity, or in office, have in all 
places precedency; but whilst they are young they ought 
to respect those that are their equals in birth or other 
qualities, though they have no public charge. 

109 



George Washington 

11. It is good manners to prefer them to whom we 
speak before ourselves, especially if they be above us, 
with whom in no sort we ought to begin. 

12. Let your discourse with men of business be short 
and comprehensive. 

13. In visiting the sick, do not presently play the phy- 
sician if you be not knowing therein. 

14. In writing, or speaking, give to every person his due 
title, according to his degree and the custom of the place. 

15. Strive not with your superiors in argument, but 
always submit your judgment to others with modesty. 

16. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art him- 
self professes : it savors of arrogancy. 

17. Wlien a man does ail he can, though it succeeds 
not well, blame not him that did it. 

18. Being to advise, or reprehend any one, consider 
whether it ought to be in public or in private, presently 
or at some other time, and in what terms to do it; and 
in reproving show no signs of choler, but do it with sweet- 
ness and mildness. 

19. Take all admonitions thankfully, in what time or 
place soever given; but afterwards, not being culpable, 
take a time and place convenient to let him know it that 
gave them. 

20. Mock not, nor jest at anything of importance; 
break no jests that are sharp-biting, and if you deliver 
anything witty and pleasant, abstain from laughing 
thereat yourself. 

21. Wherein you reprove another be unblamable your- 
self; for example is more prevalent than precepts. 

22. Use no reproachful language against any one, 
neither curse nor revile. 

23. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the dis- 
paragement of any. 

24. In your apparel be modest, and endeavor to ac- 
commodate nature, rather than to procure admiration; 

110 



\ 



Rules of Conduct 



keep to the fashion of your equals, such as are c\\\\ and 
orderly with respect to times and places. 

25. Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about 
you to see if you be well decked, if your shoes Ht \^•ell, if 
your stockings sit neatly, and clothes handsomely. 

26. Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you 
esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone 
than in bad company. 

27. Let your conversation be without malice or envy, 
for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and 
in all causes of passion, admit reason to govern. 

28. Be not immodest in urging your friend to discover 
a secret. 

29. Utter not base and frivolous things amongst grave 
and learned men; nor very difficult questions or subjects 
among the ignorant; nor things hard to be believed. 

30. Speak not of doleful things in time of mirth, nor 
at the table; speak not of melancholy things, as death, 
and wounds, and if others mention them, change, if you 
can, the discourse. Tell not your dreams, but to your 
intimate friend, 



111 



Journal 

(Extracts from Washington's journal kept during his expedition to the 
Ohio to interview the French commandant imder commission of Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddie in 1753.) 

December 12. — I prepared early to wait upon the 
commander, and was received and conducted to him by 
the second officer in command. I acquainted him with 
my business, and offered my commission and letter; both 
of which he desired me to keep until the arrival of Mon- 
sieur Reparti, captain at the next fort, who was sent for 
and expected every hour. 

This commander is a knight of the military order of 
St. Louis, and named Legardeur de St. Pierre. He is an 
elderly gentleman, and has much the air of a soldier. 
He was sent over to take the command immediately- 
upon the death of the late general, and arrived here about 
seven days before me. 

At two o'clock, the gentleman who was sent for arrived^ 
when I offered the letter, etc. again, which they received,, 
and adjourned into a private apartment for the captain 
to translate, who understood a little English. After he 
had done it, the commander desired I would walk in and 
bring my interpreter to peruse and correct it; which I did. 

December 13. — The chief officers retired to hold a 
council of war, which gave me an opprotunity of taking 
the dimensions of the fort, and making what observations 
I could. 

It is situated on the south or west fork of French Creek, 
near the water; and is almost surrounded by the creek, 
and a small branch of it, which form a kind of island. 
Four houses compose the sides. The bastions are made of 

112 



Journal 

piles driven into the ground, standing more than twelve 
feet above it, and sharp at top, with port-holes cut for 
cannon, and loop-holes for the small arms to fire through. 
There are eight six-pounds pieces mounted in each bastion, 
and one piece of four pounds before the gate. In the bas- 
tions are a guard-house, chapel, doctor's lodging, and the 
commander's private store; round which are laid plat- 
forms for the cannon and men to stand oUi There are 
several barracks without the fort, for the soldiers'dwellings, 
covered, some vvith bark, and some with boards, made 
chiefly of logs. There are also several other houses, such 
as stables, smith's shop, etc. 

I could get no certain account of the number of men 
here; but, according to the best judgment I could form, 
there are a hundred, exclusive of officers, of whom there 
are many. I also gave orders to the people who were 
vsdth me, to take an exact account of the canoes, which 
were hauled up to convey their forces down in the spring. 
This they did, and told fifty of the birch bark, and a hun- 
dred and seventy of pine; besides many others, which 
were blocked out, in readiness for being made. 

December 14. — As the snow increased very fast, and 
our horses daily became weaker, I sent them off unloaded, 
under the care of Barnaby Currin and two others, to make 
all convenient dispatch to Venango,^ and there to wait our 
arrival, if there was a prospect of the river's freezing; if 
not, then to continue down to Shannopin's Town, at the 
Fork of the Ohio, and there to wait until we came to cross 
the Allegany; intending myself to go down by water, as 
I had the offer of a canoe or two. 

As I found many plots concerted to retard the Indians' 
business, and prevent their returning with me, I endeav- 
ored ail that lay in my power to frustrate their schemes, 
and hurried them on to execute their intended design. 
They accordingly pressed for admittance this evening, 
^ Now Franklin, in Venango County, Pennsylvania. 

113 



George TVashington 

which at length was granted them, privately, to the 
commander and one or two other officers. The Half- 
Kingi told me, that he offered the wampum to the com- 
mander, who evaded taking it, and made many fair 
promises of love and friendship; said he wanted to live 
in peace and trade amicable with them, as a proof of which 
he would send some goods immediately down to the Logs- 
town 2 for them. But I rather think the design of that is 
to bring away all our straggling traders they meet with, as 
I privately understood they intended to carry an officer 
with them. And what rather confirms this opinion, I 
was inquiring of the commander by what authority he 
had made prisoners of several of our English subjects, 
lie told me that the country belonged to them; that no 
Englishman had a right to trade upon those waters; and 
that he had orders to make every person prisoner, who 
attempted it on the Ohio, or the waters of it. 

I inquired of Captain Reparti about the boy that was 
carried by this place, as it was done while the command 
devolved on him, between the death of the late general 
and the arrival of the present. He acknowledged that a 
boy had been carried past, and that the Indians had two 
or three white men's scalps (I was told by some of the 
Indians at Venango, eight), but pretended to have for- 
gotten the name of the place where the boy came from, and 
all the particular facts, though he had questioned him for 
some hours, as they were carrying him past. I likewise 
inquired what they had done with John Trotter and James 
McClocklan, two Pennsylvania traders, whom they had 
taken with all their goods. They told me, that they had 
been sent to Canada, but wore now returned home. 

This evening I received an answer to his Honor the 
Governor's letter from the commandant. 

1 The Half-King was an Indiaa chief, who with other Indians had 
joined Washington after he had entered the woods. 

2 On the Ohio Ri\er, about seventeen miles from Pittsburg. 

114 



Journal 

December 15, — The commandant ordered a plentiful 
store of liquor and provision to be put on board our 
canoes, and appeared to be extremely complaisant, 
though, he was exerting every artifice which he could in- 
vent to set our Indians at variance with us, to prevent their 
going until after our departure; presents, rewards, and 
everything, which could be suggested by him or his oflBcers. 
I cannot say that ever in my life I suffered so much anxiety 
as I did in this affair. I saw that every stratagem which 
the most fruitful brain could invent was practised to win 
the Half-King to their interest, and that leaving him 
there was giving them the opportunity they aimed at. 
I went to the Half -King and pressed him in the strongest 
terms to go; he told me that the commandant would not 
discharge him until the morning. I then went to the 
commandant and desired him to do their business, and 
complained of ill treatment; for keeping them, as they 
were part of my company, was detaining me. This he 
promised not to do, but to forward my journey as much 
as he could. He protested he did not keep them, but was 
ignorant of the cause of their stay; though I soon found 
it out. He had promised them a present of guns, if they 
would wait until the morning. As I was very much pressed 
by the Indians to wait this day for them, I consented, on 
a promise that nothing should hinder them in the morning. 

December 16. — The French were not slack in their 
inventions to keep the Indians this day also. But as they 
were obliged, according to promise, to give the present, 
they then endeavored to try the power of liquor, which 
I doubt not would have prevailed at any other time than 
this; but I urged and insisted with the King so closely 
upon his word, that he refrained, and set off with us as he 
had engaged. 

We had a tedious and verj' fatiguing passage down the 
creek. Several times we had like to have been staved 
against rocks; and many times were obliged all hands to 

115 



George JVashington 

get out and remain in the water half an hour or more, 
getting over the shoals. At one place, the ice had lodged, 
and made it impassable by water; we were, therefore, 
obliged to carry our canoe across the neck of land, a quar- 
ter of a mile over. We did not reach Venango until the 
22d, where we met with our horses. 

This creek is extremely crooked. I dare say the dis- 
tance between the fort and Venango cannot be less than 
one hundred and thirty miles, to follow the meanders. 

December 23. — When I got things ready to set off, I 
sent for the Half -King, to know whether he intended to 
go with us or by water. He told me that White Thunder 
had hurt himself much, and was sick and unable to walk; 
therefore he was obliged to carry him down in a canoe. As 
I found he intended to stay here a day or two, and knew 
that Monsieur Joncaire would employ every scheme to 
set him against the English, as he had before done, I told 
iiim, I hoped he would guard against his flattery, and let 
no fine speeches influence him in their favor. He desired 
I might not be concerned, for he knew the French too well 
for any thing to engage him in their favor; and that though 
lie could not go down with us, he yet would endeavor to 
meet at the Fork with Joseph Campbell, to deliver a 
speech for me to carry to his Hoiior the Governor. He 
told me he would order the Young Hunter to attend us, 
and get provisions, etc. if wanted. 

Our horses were now so weak and feeble, and the bag- 
gage so heavy (as we were obliged to provide ail the neces- 
saries which the journey would require), that we doubted 
much their performing it. Therefore, myself and others, 
except the drivers, who were obliged to ride, gave up our 
horses for packs, to assist along with the baggage. I put 
myself in an Indian walking-dress, and continued with 
them three days, until I found there was no probability 
of their getting home in any reasonable time. The horses 
became less able to travel every day; the cold increased 



Journal 

very fast; and the roads were becoming much worse by a 
deep snow, continually freezing; therefore, as I was un- 
easy to get back, to make report of my proceedings to his 
Honor the Governor, I determined to prosecute my jour- 
ney, the nearest way through the woods, on foot. 

Accordingly, I left Mr. Van Braam in charge of our 
baggage, with money and directions to provide neces- 
saries from place to place for themselves and horses, and 
to make the most convenient dispatch in travelling. 

I took my necessary papers, pulled off my clothes, and 
tied myself up in a watch-coat. Then, with gun in hand, 
and pack on my back, in which were my papers and pro- 
visions, I set out with Mr. Gist, fitted in the same manner, 
on Wednesday the 2Gth. The day following, just after we 
had passed a place called Murdering Town (where we in- 
tended to quit the path and steer across the country for 
Shannopin's Tovvm), vre fell in with a party of French 
Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at 
Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but fortunately 
missed. We took this fellow into custody, and kept him 
until about nine o'clock at night, then let him go, and 
walked all the remaining part of the night without making 
any stop, that we might get the start so far as to be out of 
the reach of their pursuit the next day, since we were well 
assured they would follow our track as soon as it was light. 
The next day v/e continued travelling until quite dark, 
and got to the river about tv/o miles above Shannopin's. 
We expected to have found the river frozen, but it was 
not, only about fifty yards from each shore. The ice, I 
suppose, had broken up above, for it was driving in vast 
cjuantities. 

There was no way for getting over but on a raft, which 
v/e set about, with but one poor hatchet, and finished just 
after sun-setting. This was a whole day's work; we next 
got it launched, then went on board of it, and set off; but 
before we were half-way over we were jammed in the ice, 

117 



George Washington 

in such a manner that we expected every moment our 
raft to sink, and ourselves to perish. I put out my setting- 
pole to try to stop the raft, that the ice might pass by, 
when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much 
violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten 
feet water; but 1 fortunately saved myself by catching 
hold of one of the raft-logs. Notwithstanding all our 
efforts, we could not get to either shore, but were obliged, 
as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make to it. 

The cold was so extremely severe, that Mr. Gist had 
all his fingers and some of his toes frozen, and the water 
was shut up so hard, that we found no difficulty in getting 
off the island on the ice in the morning, and went to Mr. 
Frazier's. We met here with twenty warriors, who were 
going to the southward to war; but coming to a place on 
the head of the Great Kenhawa, where they found seven 
people killed and scalped (all but one woman with very 
light hair), they turned about and ran back, for fear the 
inhabitants should rise and take them as the authors of 
the murder. They report that the bodies were lying 
about the house, and some of them much torn and eaten by 
the hogs. By the marks which were left, they say they 
were French Indians of the Ottawa nation, who did it. 

As we intended to take horses here, and it required some 
time to find them, I went up about three miles to the 
mouth of Youghiogany, to visit Queen Aliquippa, who 
had expressed great concern that we passed her in going 
to the fort. I made her a present of a watch-coat and 
a bottle of rum, which latter was thought much the better 
present of the two. 

Tuesday, the 1st of January, we left Mr. Frazier's 
house, and arrived at Mr. Gist's, at Monongahela, the 
^i, where I bought a horse and saddle. The 6th, we met 
seventeen horses loaded with materials and stores for a fort 
at the Fork of the OJiio, and the day after, some families 
going out to settle. This day, we arrived at Wills Creek, 

118 



Journal 

after as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive, 
rendered so by excessive bad weather. From the 1st day 
of December to the 15th there was but one day on which 
it did not rain or snow incessantly; a^d throughout the 
whole journey we met with nothing but one continued 
series of cold, wet weather, which occasioned very un- 
comfortable lodgings, especially after we had quitted our 
tent, which v/as some screen from the inclemency of it. 
On the 11th, I got to Belvoir, where I stopped one day 
to take necessary rest; and then set out and arrived '\t\. 
Williamsburg the 16th, where I waited upon his Honor 
the Governor, with the letter I had brought from the 
French commandant, and to give an account of the success 
of my proceedings. This I beg leave to do by offering 
the foregoing narrative, as it contains the most remarkable 
occurrences which happened in my journey. 

I hope what has been said will be sufficient to make your 
Honor satisfied with my conduct; for that was my aim 
in undertaking the journey, and chief study throughout 
the prosecution of it. 



119 



Letters 

I. To Robert Orme, Gen. Bracldock's aid-de camp, upon Washington's 
appointment to join Gen. Braddock's expedition. 

Mount Veunon, 15 March, 1755. 

Sir: 

I was not favored with your polite letter, of the 2d in- 
stant, until yesterday; acquainting me with the notice 
his Excellency, General Braddock, is pleased to honor me 
with, by kindly inviting me to become one of his family 
the ensuing camjfeign. It is true, sir, I have, ever since I 
declined my late command,expressed an inclination to serve 
in this campaign as a volunteer; and this inclination is not 
a little increased, since it is likely to be conducted by a 
gentleman of the general's experience. 

But, besides this, and the laudable desire I may have 
to serve with my best abilities my king and country, I 
must be ingenuous enough to confess, that I am not a 
little biased by selfish considerations. To explain, sir, I 
wish earnestly to attain some knowledge in the military 
profession, and, believing a more favorable opportunity 
cannot offer than to serve under a gentleman of General 
Braddock's abilities and experience, it does, you may 
reasonably suppose, not a little contribute to influence 
my choice. But, sir, as I have taken the liberty to express 
my sentiments so freely, I must beg your indulgence while 
I add, that the only bar which can check me in the pursuit 
of this object, is the inconveniences that must necessarily 
result from some proceedings, which happened a little 
before the general's arrival, and which, in some measure, 
had abated the ardor of my desires, and determined me to 
lead a life of retirement, into which I was just entering, 
at no small expense, when your favor was presented to me. 

120 



A 



Letters 

But, as I shall do myself the honor of waiting upon his 
Excellency as soon as I hear of his arrival at Alexandria, 
(I would do it sooner, were I certain where to find him,) I 
shall decline saying anything further on this head till then, 
begging you will be pleased to assure him, that I shall 
always retain a grateful sense of the favor with which he 
is pleased to honor me, and that I should have embraced 
this opportunity of writing to him, had I not recently 
addressed a congratulatory letter to him on his safe arrival 
in this country, ^ 

I flatter myself you will favor me in making a communi- 
cation of these sentiments. 

You do me a singular favor in proposing an acquaint- 
ance. It cannot but be attended with the most flattering 
prospects on my part, as you may already perceive by the 
familiarity and freedom with which I now enter upon this 
correspondence; a freedom which, even if it is disagree- 
able, you must excuse, and lay the blame of it at your own 
door, for encouraging me to throw off that restraint 
which otherwise might have been more obvious in my 
deportment on such an occasion. 

The hope of shortly seeing you will be an excuse for 
my not adding more than that I shall endeavor to approve 
myself worthy of your friendship, and that I beg to be 
esteemed your most obedient servant. 



' ' II. To William Fairfax. 

Winchester, 5 May, 1755. 
Dear Sir: 

I overtook the general at Frederic Town, in Maryland. 
Thence we proceeded to this place, v>^here we shall remain 
till the arrival of the second division of the train, which 
we hear left Alexandria on Tuesday last. After that, we 
shall continue our march to Wills Creek; from whence, it 
is imagined, we shall not stir till the latter end of this 

121 



George JVashingtoft 

month, for want of wagons and other conveniences of 
transport over the mountains. 

You will naturally conclude, that to pass through 
Maryland, when no object required it, was an uncom- 
mon and an extraordinary route for the general and for 
Colonel Dunbar's regiment to this place. The reason, 
however, was obvious. Those who promoted it had rather 
the communication should be opened that way than 
through Virginia; but I believe the eyes of the general 
are now opened, and tlie imporsition detected; conse- 
quently, the like will not happen again. I am, etc. 



III. To J(»l:n A. Washington. 

Foin' Cumberland, 14 May., 1755. 
Dear Brother: 

As wearing boots is quite the mode, and mine are in a 
declining state, I must beg the favor of you to procure me 
a pair that are good and neat, and send them to Major 
Carlyle, who, I hope, will contrive to forward them as 
quickly as my necessity requires. 

I see no prospect of moving from this place soon, as we 
have neither horses nor wagons enough, and no forage, 
except what is expected from Philadelphia; therefore, I 
am well convinced that the trouble and difficulty we 
must encounter in passing the mountains, for the want of 
proper conveniences, will equal all the difficulties of the 
campaign; for I conceive the march of such a train of 
artillery, in these roads, to be a tremendous undertaking. 
As to any danger from the enemy, I look upon it as trifling, 
for I believe the French will be obliged to exert their ut- 
most force to repel the attacks to the northward, where 
Governor Shirley and others, with a body of eight thousand 
men, will annoy their settlements, and attempt their forts. 

The general has appointed me one of his aids-de-camp, 
in which character I shall serve this campaign agreeably 

122 



Letters 

enough, as I am thereby freed from all commands but his, 
and give his orders, which must be implicitly obeyed. 

I have now a good opportunity, and shall not neglect 
it, of forming an acquaintance, which may be serviceable 
hereafter, if I find it worth while to push my fortune in the 
military line. 

I have written to my two female correspondents by 
this opportunity, one of whose letters I have enclosed to 
you, and beg your deliverance of it. I shall expect a 
particular account of all that has happened since my 
departure. 

I am, deal" Jack, 

Your most afTectionate brother. 



IV. To John A. Wiishlngton. 

YotcniooANY, 23 June, 175.5. 
Dear Brother: 

Immediately upon our leaving the camp at George's 
Creek, on the 14th instant, from wiience I wrote to you, 
I was seized with a violent fever and pain of the head, 
which continued without intermission until the 23d, when 
I was relieved, by the general's absolutely ordering the phy- 
sician to give me Dr. James's powders, one of the most ex- 
cellent medicines in the world. It gave me immediate ease, 
and removed my fever and other complaints in four days' 
time. My illness was too violent to suffer me to ride; 
therefore I was indebted to a covered wagon for some part 
of my transportation; but even in this I could not con- 
tinue far. The jolting was so great, that I was left upon 
the road, with a guard and some necessaries, to wait the 
arrival of Colonel Dunbar's detachment, which was two 
days' march behind us, the general giving me his word of 
honor that I should be brought up before he reached the 
French fort. This promise, and the doctor's declaration, 
that if I persevered in my attempts to go on, in the con- 

123 



George Washington 

dition I then was, my life would be endangered, determined 
me to halt for the above mentioned detachment. 

As the communication between this and Wills Creek 
must soon be too dangerous for single persons to pass, it 
will render the intercourse of letters slow and precarious; 
therefore I shall attempt (and will go through it if I have 
strength) to give you an account of our proceedings, our 
situation, and prospects at present; which I desire you 
will communicate to Colonel Fairfax, and others, my cor- 
respondents, for I am too weak to \\Tite more than this 
letter. 

In the letter which I wrote to you from George's Creek, 
I acquainted you that, unless the number of wagons was 
retrenched and the carriage-horses increased, we should 
never be able to see Fort Duquesne. This, in two days 
afterwards (which was about the time they got to the 
Little Meadows, with some of their foremost wagons and 
strongest teams), they themselves were convinced of; for 
they found that, besides the extreme difficulty of getting 
the wagons along at all, they had often a line of three or 
four miles in length; and the soldiers guarding them were 
so dispersed, that, if Vv'e had been attacked either in front, 
centre, or rear, the part so attacked must have been cut 
off or totally routed, before they could be sustained by any 
other corps. 

At the Little Meadows a second council was called (for 
there had been one before), wherein the urgency for horses 
was again represented to the officers of the different corps, 
and how laudable a farther retrenchment of their baggage 
would be, that the spare ones might be turned over for 
the public service. In order to encourage this, I gave up 
my best horse, which I have never heard of since, and took 
no more baggage than half my portmanteau would easily 
contain. It is said, however, that the number reduced by 
this second attempt Vv^as only from two hundred and ten 
or twelve, to two hundred, which had no perceivable effect. 

124 



Letters 

The general, before they met in council, asked my pri- 
vate opinion concerning the expedition. I urged him, in 
the warmest terms I was able, to push forward, if he even 
did it with a small but chosen band, with such artillery and 
light stores as were necessary; leaving the heavy artillery, 
baggage, and the like with the rear division of the army, 
to follow by slow and easy marches, which they might do 
safely while we were advanced in front. As one reason to 
support this opinion, I urged that, if we could credit our 
intelligence, the French were weak at the Fork at present, 
but hourly expected reinforcements, which, to my certain 
knowledge, could not arrive with provisions, or any sup- 
plies, during the continuance of the drought, as the Buffalo 
River (Riviere aux Boeufs), down which was their only 
communication to Venango, must be as dry as we now 
found the Great Crossing of the Youghiogany, which may 
be passed dry-shod. 

This advice prevailed, and it was determined that the 
general, with one thousand tvv^o hundred chosen men, and 
officers from all the different corps, under the following 
field officers, viz.. Sir Peter Halket, who acts as brigadier, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, and 
Major Sparks, with such a number of wagons as the train 
would absolutely require, should march as soon as things 
could be got in readiness. This v/as completed, and We 
were on our march by the 19th, leaving Colonel Dunbar 
and Major Chapman behind, with the residue of the two 
regiments, some independent companies, most of the 
women, and, in short, everything not absolutely essential, 
carrying our provisions and other necessaries upon horses. 

We set out with less than thirty carriages, including 
those that transported the ammunition for the howitzers, 
twelve-pounders, and six-pounders, and all of them strongly 
horsed; which was a prospect that conveyed infinite de- 
light to my mind, though I was excessively ill at the time. 
But this prospect was soon clouded, and my hopes brought 

125 



George Washington 

very low indeed, when I found that, instead of pushing on 
with vigor, without regarding a httie rough road, they were 
halting to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over 
every brook, by which means we were four days in getting 
twelve miles. 

At this camp I was left by the doctor's advice and the 
general's positive orders, as I have already mentioned, 
without which I should not have been prevailed upon to 
remain behind; as I then imagined, and now believe, I 
shall find it no easy matter to join my own corps again, 
which is twenty -five miles in advance. Notwithstanding, 
I had the general's word of honor, pledged in the most 
solemn manner, that I should be brought up before he 
arrived at Fort Duquesne. They have had frequent 
alarms, and several men have been scalped; but this is 
done with no other design than to retard the march, and 
to harass the men, who, if they are to be turned out every 
time a small party attacks the guards at night (for I am 
certain they have not sujBBcieut force to make a serious 
assault), the enemy's aim will be accomplished by the 
gaining of time. 

I have been now six days with Colonel Dunbar's corps, 
who are in a miserable condition for want of horses, not 
having enough for their wagons; so that the only method 
he has of proceeding is to march with as many wagons as 
these will draw, and then halt till the remainder are 
brought up with the same horses, which requires two 
days more; and shortly, I believe, he will not be able 
to stir at all. There has been vile management in regard 
to horses. 

My strength will not admit of my saying more, though 
I have not said half that I intended concerning affairs here. 
Business I shall not think of, but depend solely upon your 
management of all my affairs, not doubting that they will 
be well conducted. I am, etc. 

126 



Letters 

V. To Mrs. Mary Washington, Near PVederlcksburg. 

Fort Cumbeeland, 18 July, 1755. 
Honored Madam: 

As I doubt not but you have heard of our defeat, and, 
perhaps, had it represented in a worse light, if possible, 
than it deserves, I have taken this earliest opportunity to 
give you some account of the engagement as it happened 
within ten miles of the French fort, on Wednesday the 
9th instant. 

We marched to that place without any considerable loss 
having only now and then a straggler picked up by the 
French and scouting Indians. When we came there w^e 
were attacked by a party of French and Indians, whose 
number, I am persuaded, did not exceed three hundred 
men; while ours consisted of about one thousand three 
hundred well-armed troops, chiefly regular soldiers, who 
were struck with such a panic that they behaved with 
more cowardice than it is possible to conceive. The officers 
behaved gallantly in order to encourage their men, for 
which they suffered greatly, there being near sixty killed 
and wounded; a large proportion of the number we had. 

The Virginia troops showed a good deal of bravery, 
and were nearly all killed; for I believe, out of three com- 
panies that there were scarcely thirty men left alive. 
Captain Peyrouny, and all his officers down to a corporal, 
were killed. Captain Poison had nearly as hard a fate, 
for only one of his was left. In short, the dastardly be- 
havior of those they call regulars exposed all others, that 
were inclined to do their duty, to almost certain death; 
and at last, despite of all the efforts of the officers to the 
contrary, they riin, as sheep pursued by dogs, and it was 
impossible to rally them. 

The general was wounded, of which he died three days 
after. Sir Peter Halket was killed in the field, where died 
many other brave officers. I luckily escaped without a 

127 



George JVashington 

wound, though I had four bullets through my coat, and 
two horses shot under me. Captains Orme and Morris, 
two of the aids-de-camp, w^ere wounded early in the en- 
gagement, which rendered the duty harder upon me, as I 
was the only person then left to distribute the general's 
orders, which I was scarcely able to do, as I was not half 
recovered from a violent illness that had confined me to 
my bed and a wagon for above ten days. I am still in a 
weak and feeble condition, which induces me to halt here 
two or three days in the hope of recovering a little strength, 
to enable me to proceed homewards; from whence, I fear, 
I shall not be able to stir till towards September; so that 
I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you till then, unless 
it be in Fairfax. Please to give my love to Mr. Lewis and 
my sister; and compliments to Mr. Jackson, and all 
other friends that inquire after me. I am, honored madam, 
your most dutiful son. 



VI. To Bryan Fairfax, on the Stamp Act. 

Mount Vernon, 20 July, 1774. 

Dear Sir: 

Your letter of the 17th was not presented to me till 
after the resolutions, which were judged advisable for 
this country to adopt, had been revised, altered, and cor- 
rected in the committee; nor till we had gone into a 
general meeting in the court-house, and my attention was 
necessarily called every moment to the business before 
us. I did, however, upon the receipt of it, in that hurry 
and bustle, hastily run it over, and I handed it round to 
the gentlemen on the bench, of whom there were many; 
but, as no person present seemed in the least disposed 
to adopt your sentiments, as there appeared a perfect 
satisfaction and acquiescence in the measures proposed 
(except from Mr. Williamson, who was for adopting your 
advice literally, without obtaining a second voice on his 

■\ 128 



Letters 

side), and as a gentleman, to whom the letter was shovv^n, 
advised me not to have it read, as it was not likely to 
make a convert, and was repugnant, some of them thought, 
to every principle we were contending for, I forbore to 
offer it otherwise than in the manner above mentioned; 
which I shall be sorry for, if it gives you any dissatisfac- 
tion that your sentiments were not read to the county 
at large, instead of being communicated to the first people 
in it, by offering them the letter in the manner I did. 

That I differ very widely from you, in respect to the 
mode of obtaining a repeal of the acts so much and so 
justly complained of, I shall not hesitate to acknowledge; 
and that this difference in opinion probably proceeds from 
the different constructions we put upon the conduct and 
intention of the ministry may also be true; but as I see 
nothing, on the one hand, to induce a belief that the 
Parliament would embrace a favorable opportunity of 
repealing acts which they go on with great rapidity to 
pass in order to enforce their tyrannical system; and, on 
the other, I observe, or think I observe, that government 
is pursuing a regular plan at the expense of law and 
justice to overthrow our constitutional rights and liber- 
ties, how can I expect any redress from a measure which 
has been ineffectually tried already? For, sir, what is it 
we are contending against? Is it against paying the duty 
of three pence per pound on tea because burdensome? 
No; it is the right only, that we have all long disputed; 
and to this end we have already petitioned his Majesty 
in as humble and dutiful a manner as subjects could do. 
Nay, more, we applied to the House of Lords and House 
of Commons in their different legislative capacities, set- 
ting forth, that, as Englishmen, we could not be deprived 
of this essential and valuable part of our constitution. 
If, then, as the fact really is, it is against the right of 
taxation that we now do, and, as I before said, all along 
have contended, why should they suppose an exertion of 

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George Washington 

this power would be less obnoxious now than formerly? 
And what reason have we to believe that they would 
make a second attempt, whilst the same sentiments fiH 
the bre9,st of every American, if they did not intend to 
enforce it if possible? 

The conduct of the Boston people could not justify the 
rigor of their measures, unless there had been a requisi- 
tion of payment and refusal of it; nor did that conduct 
require an act to deprive the government of Massachu- 
setts Bay of their charter, or to exempt offenders from 
trial in the places where offences were committed, as there 
was not, nor could there be, a single instance produced to 
manifest the necessity of it. Are not all these things 
evident proofs of a fixed and uniform plan to tax us? If 
we want further proofs, do not all the debates in the 
House of Commons serve to confirm this? And has not 
General Gage's conduct since his arrival, in stopping the 
address of his council and publishing a proclamation 
more becoming a Turkish bashaw than an English gov- 
ernor, declaring it treason to associate in any manner by 
which the commerce of Great Britain is to be affected, — 
has not this exhibited an unexampled testimony of the 
most despotic system of tyranny that ever was practised 
in a free government? In short, what further proofs are 
wanting to satisfy any one of the designs of the ministry 
than their own acts, which are uniform and plainly tend- 
ing to the same point, nay, if I mistake not, avowedly to 
fix the right of taxation? What hope have we then from 
petitioning, when they tell us that now or never is the 
time to fix the matter? Shall we, after this, whine and 
cry for relief, when we have already tried it in vain? Or 
shall we supinely sit and see one province after another 
fall a sacrifice to despotism? 

If I were in any doubt as to the right which the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain had to tax us without our consent, 
I should most heartily coincide with you in opinion, that 

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to petition, and petition only, is the proper method to 
apply for relief; because we should then be asking a favor, 
and not claiming a right, which, by the law of nature 
and by our constitution, we are, in my opinion, indubi- 
tably entitled to. I should even think it criminal to go 
further than this, under such an idea; but I have none 
such. I think the Parliament ci Great Britain have no 
more right to put their hands into my pocket, without 
my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours; 
and this being already urged to them in a jQrm but decent 
manner, by all the colonies, what reason is there to expect 
anything from their justice? 

As to the resolution for addressing the throne, I own 
to you, sir, I think the whole might as well have been ex- 
punged. I expect nothing from the measure, nor should 
my voice have sanctioned it, if the non-importation 
scheme was intended to be retarded by it; for I am con- 
vinced, as much as I am of my existence, that there is 
no relief for us but in their distress; and I think, at least 
I hope, that there is public virtue enough left among us 
to deny ourselves everything but the bare necessaries of 
life to accomplish this end. This we have a right to do, 
and no power upon earth can compel us to do otherwise, 
till it has first reduced us to the most abject state of 
slavery. The stopping of our exports would, no doubt, 
be a shorter method than the other to effect this pur- 
pose; but if we owe money to Great Britain, nothing but 
the last necessity can justify the non-payment of it; and, 
therefore, I have great doubts upon this head, and wish 
to see the other method first tried, which is legal and 
will facilitate these payments. 

I cannot conclude v/ithout expressing some concern 
thstt I should differ so widely in sentiments from you on 
a matter of such great moment and general import; and 
I should much distrust my own judgment upon the occa- 
sion, if my nature did not recoil at the thought of sub- 

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George Washington 

mitting to measures which I think subversive of every- 
thing that I ought to hold dear and valuable, and did I 
not find, at the same time, that the voice of mankind is 
with me. I must apologize for sending you so rough a 
sketch of my thoughts upon your letter. When I look 
back and see the length of my own, I cannot, as I am a 
good deal hurried at this time, think of taking off a fair 
copy. 

I am, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant. 



VII. To the President of Congress upon his appointment as commander- 
in-chief of the Continental Army. 

Mr. President: 

Though I am truly sensible of the high honor done me, 
in this appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a con- 
sciousness that my abilities and military experience may 
not be equal to the extensive and important trust. How- 
ever, as the Congress desire it, I will enter upon the mo- 
mentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their 
service, and for the support of the glorious cause. I beg 
they will accept my most cordial thanks for this dis- 
tinguished testimony of their approbation. 

But, lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavor- 
able to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by 
every gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with 
the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the 
command I am honored with. 

As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that, 
as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me 
to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my 
domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any 
profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my ex- 
penses. Those, I doubt not, they will discharge; and 
that is all I desire. 

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VIII. To Mrs. Martha Washington upon the same occasion. 

My Dearest: 

I am now set down to write to you on a subject which 
fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is 
greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the 
uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been deter- 
mined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the 
defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, 
and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately 
to Boston to take upon me the command of it. 

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure 
you in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seek- 
ing this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my 
power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to 
part with you and the family, but from a consciousness 
of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that 
I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with 
you at home, than I have the most distant prospect of 
finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven 
years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that has 
thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my under- 
taking it is designed to answer some good purpose. You 
might, and I suppose did perceive, from the tenor of ray 
letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this 
appointment, as I did not pretend to intimate when I 
should return. That was the case. It was utterly out 
of my power to refuse this appointment without expos- 
ing my character to such censures as would have reflected 
dishonor upon myself, and given pain to my friends. 
This, I am sure, could not, and ought not, to be pleasing 
to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my 
own esteem. I shall rely, therefore, confidently on that 
Providence which has heretofore preserved and been 
bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safe 
to you in the fall. I shall feel no pain from the toil or 

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George IVashington 

the danger of the campaign; my unhappiness will flow 
from the uneasiness I know you will feel from being left 
alone. I therefore beg that you will summon your whole 
fortitude, and pass your time as agreeably as possible. 
Nothing will give me so much sincere satisfaction as to 
hear this, and to hear it from your own pen. My earnest 
and ardent desire is, that you would pursue any plan 
that is most likely to produce content and a tolerable 
degree of tranquillity; as it must add greatly to my un- 
easy feelings to hear that you are dissatisfied or com- 
plaining at what I really could not avoid. 

As life is always uncertain, and common prudence dic- 
tates to every man the necessity of settling his temporal 
concerns while it is in his power, and while the mind is 
calm and undisturbed, I have, since I came to this place 
(for I had not time to do it before I left home), got 
Colonel Pendleton to draft a will for me, by the direc- 
tions I gave him, which I will now enclose. The provi- 
sion made for you in case of my death, will, I hope, be 
agreeable. 

I shall add nothing more, as I have several letters to 
write, but to desire that you will remember me to your 
friends, and to assure you that I am, with the most 
unfeigned regard, my dear Patsy, your affectionate, &c. 



IX. To Lund Washington, entrusting him with the care of Mount 
Vernon during this absence. 

I well know where the difficulty of accomplishing these 
things will lie. Overseers arc already engaged, upon 
shai-es, to look after my business. Remote advantages 
to me, however manifest and beneficial, are nothing to 
them; and to engage standing wages, when I do not 
know that anything that I have or can raise will com- 
mand cash, is attended with hazard; for which reason 
I hardly know what more to say than to discover to you 

134 



Letters 

my wishes. The same reason, although it may in appear- 
ance have the same tendency in respect to you, shall not 
be the same in its operation; for I will engage for the 
year coming, and the year following, if these troubles 
and my absence continue, that your wages shall be stand- 
ing and certain, at the highest amount, that any one 
year's crop has produced to you yet. I do not offer this 
as any temptation to induce you to go on more cheer- 
fully in prosecuting these schemes of mine. I should do 
injustice to you, were I not to acknowledge that your 
conduct has ever appeared to me above everything sor- 
did; but I offer it in consideration of the great charge 
you have upon your hands, and my entire dependence 
upon your fidelity and industry. 

It is the greatest, indeed it is the only comfortable re- 
flection I enjoy on this score, that my business is in the 
hands of a person concerning whose integrity I have not 
a doubt, and on whose care I can rely. Were it not for 
this, I should feel very unhappy on account of the situa- 
tion of my affairs; but I am persuaded you will do for 
me as you would for yourself, and more than this I 
cannot expect. 

Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the 
poor be kept up. Let no one go hungry away. If any 
of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply 
their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in 
idleness; and I have no objection to your giving my 
money in charity, to the amount of forty or fifty pounds 
a year, when you think it well bestowed. What I mean 
by having no objection is, that it is my desire that it 
should be done. You are to consider, that neither my- 
self nor wife is now in the way to do these good offices. 
In all other respects I recommend it to you, and have 
no doubt of your observing the greatest economy and 
frugality; as I suppose you know that I do not get a 
farthing for my services here, more than my expenses. 

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George Washington 

It becomes necessary, therefore, for me to be saving 
at home. 



X. To the President of Congrsss from Camp at Cambridge. 

10 July., 177.5. 

Sir: 

I arrived safe at this place on the 3d instant, after a 
journey attended with a good deal of fatigue, and retarded 
by necessary attentions to the successive civilities, which 
accompanied me in my whole route. 

Upon my arrival, I immediately visited the several 
posts occupied by our troops; and, as soon as the weather 
permitted, reconnoitred those of the enemy. I found the 
latter strongly intrenching on Bunker's Hill, about a mile 
from Charlestown, and advanced about a mile from the 
place of the late action, with their sentries extended about 
one hundred and fifty yards on this side of the narrow- 
est part of the neck leading from this place to Charles- 
town. Three floating batteries lie in Mystic River near 
their camp, and one twenty-gun ship below the ferry- 
place between Boston and Charlestown. They have also 
a battery on Cops Hill, on the Boston side, which much 
annoyed our troops in the late attack. Upon Roxbury 
Neck, they are also deeply intrenched and strongly forti- 
fied. Their advanced guards, till last Saturday, occu- 
pied Brown's houses, about a mile from Roxbury meeting- 
house, and twenty rods from their lines; but at that time 
a party from General Thomas's camp surprised the guard, 
drove them in, and burned the houses. The bulk of their 
army, commanded by General Howe, lies on Bunker's 
Hill, and the remainder on Roxbury Neck, except the 
light-horse and a few men in the town of Boston. 

On our side, we have thrown up intrenchments on Win- 
ter and Prospect Hills, the enemy's camp in full view, at 
the distance of little more than a mile. Such interrae- 

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Letters 

diate points as would admit a landing, I have since my 
arrival taken care to strengthen, down to Sewall's farm, 
where a strong intrenchment has been thrown up. At 
Roxbury, General Thomas has thrown up a strong worlv 
on the hill, about two hundred yards above the meeting- 
house; which, with the brokenness of the ground, and a 
great number of rocks, has made that pass very secure. 
The troops raised in New Hampshire, with a regiment 
from Rhode Island, occupy Winter Hill; a part of those 
from Connecticut, under General Putnam, are on Pros- 
pect Hill. The troops in this town are entirely of the 
Massachusetts; the remainder of the Rhode Island men 
are at Sewall's farm. Two regiments of Connecticut, and 
nine of the Massachusetts, are at Roxbury. The residue 
of the army, to the number of about seven hundred, are 
posted in several small towns along the coast, to prevent 
the depredations of the enemy. 

Upon the whole, I think myself authorized to say, 
that, considering the great extent of line and the nature 
of the ground, we are as well secured as could be expected 
in so short a time, and with the disadvantages we labor 
under. These consist in a want of engineers to construct 
proper works and direct the men, a want of tools, and 
a sufficient number of men to man the works in case of 
an attack. You will observe, by the proceedings of the 
council of war, which I have the honor to enclose, that 
it is our unanimous opinion to hold and defend these 
works as long as possible. The discouragement it would 
give the men, and its contrary effects on the ministerial 
troops, thus to abandon our encampment in their face, 
formed with so much labor and expense, added to the 
certain destruction of a considerable and valuable extent 
of country, and our uncertainty of finding a place in all 
respects so capable of making a stand, are leading reasons 
for this determination. At the same time we are very 
sensible of the diflSculties which attend the defence of 

137 



George Washington 

lines of so great extent, and the dangers which may ensue 
from such a division of the army. 

My earnest wish to comply with the instructions of 
the Congress, in making an early and complete return of 
the state of the army, has led to an involuntary delay 
of addressing you; which has given me much concern. 
Having given orders for that purpose irc" '^diately on my 
arrival, and not then so well apprised of the imperfect 
obedience which had been paid to those of tlie like nature 
from General Ward, I was led from day to day to expect 
they would come in, and therefore detained the messenger. 
They are not now so complete as I could wish; but much 
allowance is to be made for inexperience in forms, and a 
liberty which had been taken (not given) on the subject. 
These reasons, I jflatter myself, will no longer exist; and, 
of consequence, more regularity and exactness will in 
future prevail. This, with a necessary attention to the 
lines, the movements of the ministerial troops, and our 
immediate security, must be my apology, which I beg 
you to lay before Congress with the utmost duty and 
respect. 

We labor under great disadvantages for want of tents; 
for, though they have been helped out by a collection of 
sails from the seaport towns, the number is far short of 
our necessities. The colleges and houses of this town are 
necessarily occupied by the troops; which affords an- 
other reason for keeping our present station. But I most 
sincerely wish the whole army was properly provided to 
take the field, as I am well assured, that, besides greater 
expedition and activity in case of alarm, it would highly 
conduce to health and discipline. As materials are not 
to be had here, I would beg leave to recommend the 
procuring of a farther supply from Philadelphia as soon 
as possible. 

I sliould be extremely deficient in gratitude, as well 
as justice, if I did not take the first opportunity to ac- 

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Letters 

knowledge the readiness and attention, which the Provin- 
cial Congress ^ and different committees have shown, to 
make everything as convenient and agreeable as possible. 
But there is a vital and inherent principle of delay incom- 
patible with military service, in transacting business 
through such numerous and different channels. I esteem 
it, therefore, my duty to represent the inconvenience 
which must unavoidably ensue from a dependence on a 
nuiriber of persons for supplies; and submit it to the 
consideration of Congress, whether the public service will 
not be best promoted by appointing a commissary-general 
for these purj^oses. We have a striking instance of the 
preference of such a mode, in the establishment of Con- 
necticut, as their troops are extremely well provided 
under the direction of Mr. Trumbull, and he has at dif- 
ferent times assisted others with various articles. Should 
my sentiments happily coincide with those of your Honors 
on this subject, I beg leave to propose Mr. Trumbull as 
a very proper person for this department. In the ar- 
rangement of troops collected under such circumstances, 
and upon the spur of immediate necessity, several appoint- 
ments have been omitted, which appear to be indispen- 
sably necessary for the good government of the army, 
particularly a quarter-master-general, a commissary of 
musters, and a commissary of artillery. These I must 
particularly recommend to the notice and provision of 
the Congress. 

I find myself already much embarrassed for want of 
a military chest. These embarrassments will increase 
every day. I must therefore most earnestly request that 
money may be forwarded as soon as possible. The want 
of this most necessary article will, I fear, produce great 
inconveniences, if not prevented by an early attention. 
I find the army in general, and the troops raised in Massa- 
chusetts in particular, very deficient in necessary clothing. 
^That is, the congress formed by the patriots in Massachusetts. 
139 



George Washington 

Upon inquiry, there appears no probability of obtaining 
any supplies in this quarter; and, on the best considera- 
tion of this matter I am able to form, I am of opinion 
that a number of hunting-shirts, not less than ten thou- 
sand, would in a great degree remove this difficulty, in 
the cheapest and quickest manner. I know nothing, in 
a speculative view, more trivial, yet which, if put in prac- 
tice, would have a happier tendency to unite the men, 
and abolish those provincial distinctions that lead to 
jealousy and dissatisfaction. 

In a former part of this letter I mentioned the want 
of engineers. I can hardly express the disappointment 
I have experienced on this subject, the skill of those we 
have being very imperfect, and confined to the mere 
manual exercise of cannon; whereas the war in which we 
are engaged requires a knowledge, comprehending the 
duties of the field, and fortification. If any persons thus 
qualified are to be found in the southern colonies, it would 
be of great public service to forward them with all expe- 
dition. 

Upon the article of ammunition I must reecho the 
former complaints on this subject. We are so exceed- 
ingly destitute, that our artillery will be of little use, 
without a supply both large and seasonable. What we 
have must be reserved for the small arms, and that man- 
aged with the utmost frugality. 

I am very sorry to observe that the appointment of 
general officers, in the provinces of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, has not corresponded with the wishes and 
judgment of either the civil or military. The great dis- 
satisfaction expressed on this subject, and the apparent 
danger of throwing the whole army into the utmost dis- 
order, together with the strong representations made by 
the Provincial Congress, have induced me to retain the 
commissions in my hands until the pleasure of the Con- 
tinental Congress should be further known, except Gen- 

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Letters 

eral Putnam's, which was given the day I came to the 
camp, and before I was apprised of these disgusts. In 
such a step, I must beg the Congress will do me the jus- 
tice to believe that I have been actuated solely by a re- 
gard to the public good. 

I have not, nor could I have, any private attachments; 
every gentleman in appointment was a stranger to me, 
but from character; I must, therefore, rely upon the can- 
dor and indulgence of Congress for their most favorable 
construction of my conduct in this particular. General 
Spencer's disgust was so great at General Putnam's pro- 
motion, that he left the army without visiting me, or 
making known his intention in any respect. 

General Pomroy had also retired before my arrival, 
occasioned, as it is said, by some disappointment from 
the Provincial Congress. General Thomas is much es- 
teemed, and most earnestly desired to continue in the 
service; and, as far as my opportunities have enabled 
me to judge, I must join in the general opinion, that he 
is an able, good officer; and his resignation would be a 
public loss. The postponing of him to Pomroy and 
Heath, whom he has commanded, would make his con- 
tinuance very difficult, and probably operate on his mind, 
as the like circumstances did on that of Spencer. 

The state of the army you will find ascertained with 
tolerable precision in the returns which accompany this 
letter. Upon finding the number of men to fall so far 
short of the establishment, and below all expectation, I 
immediately called a council of the general officers, whose 
opinion as to the mode of filling up the regiments, and 
providing for the present exigency, I have the honor of 
enclosing, together with the best judgment we are able 
to form of the ministerial troops. From the number of 
boys, deserters, and negroes, that have been enlisted in the 
troops of this province, I entertain some doubts whether 
the number required can be raised here; and all the gen- 

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George Washington 

eral officers agree that no dependence can be put on the 
militia for a continuance in camp, or regularity and dis- 
cipline during the short time they may stay. This un- 
happy and devoted province has been so long in a state 
of anarchy, and the yoke of ministerial oppression has 
been laid so heavily on it, that great allowances are to 
be made for troops raised under such circumstances. 
The deficiency of numbers, discipline, and stores, can 
only lead to this conclusion, that their spirit has exceeded 
their strength. But, at the same time, I would humbly 
submit to the consideration of Congress the propriety of 
making some further provision of men from the other 
colonies. If these regiments should be completed to their 
establishment, the dismission of those unfit for duty, on 
account of their age and character, would occasion a 
considerable reduction; and, at all events, they have been 
enlisted upon such terms that they may be disbanded 
when other troops arrive. But should my apprehensions 
be realized, and the regiments here not be filled up, the 
public cause would suffer by an absolute dependence upon 
so doubtful an event, unless some provision is made 
against such a disappointment. 

It requires no military skill to judge of the difficulty of 
introducing proper discipline and subordination into an 
army, while we have the enemy in view, and are in daily 
expectation of an attack; but it is of so much importance 
that every effort will be made to this end which time 
and circumstances will admit. In the mean time, I have 
a sincere pleasure in observing, that there are materials 
for a good army, a great number of able-bodied men, 
active, zealous in the cause, and of unquestionable 
courage. 

I am now, sir, to acknowledge the receipt of your favon 
of the 28th of June, enclosing the resolutions of Congress 
of the 27th, and a copy of a letter from the Committee 
of Albany; to all which I shall pay due attention. 

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Letters 

Generals Gates and Sullivan have both arrived in good 
health. 

My best abilities are at all times devoted to the serv- 
ice of my country; but I feel the weight, importance, 
and variety of my present duties too sensibly, not to 
wish a more immediate and frequent communication with 
the Congress, I fear it may often happen, in the course 
of our present operations, that I shall need that assist- 
ance and direction from them, which time and distance 
will not allow me to receive. 

Since writing the above, I have also to acknowledge 
your favor of the 4th instant by Fessenden, and the 
receipt of the commissions and articles of war. Among 
the other returns, I have also sent one of our killed, 
wounded, and missing, in the late action; but have been 
able to procure no certain account of the loss of the min- 
isterial troops. My best intelligence fixes it at about 
five hundred killed and six or seven hundred wounded; 
but it is no more than conjecture, the utmost pains being 
taken on their side to conceal their loss. 

Having ordered the commanding officer to give me the 
earliest intelligence of every motion of the enemy by land 
or water, discernible from the heights of his camp, I this 
instant, as I was closing my letter, received the enclosed 
from the brigade-major. The design of this manoeuvre I 
know not; perhaps it may be to make a descent some- 
where along the coast; it may be for New York; or it 
may be practised as a deception on us. I thought it not 
improper, however, to mention the matter to you; I have 
done the ^ame to the commanding officer at New York; 
and I shall let it be known to the Committee of Safety 
here, so that intelligence may be communicated, as they 
shall think best, along the sea-coast of this government. 
I have the honor to be, etc. 



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George JVashington 

XI. To the President of Congress from Camp at Valley Forge. 

Valley Forge, 23 December, 1777. 
Sir: 

Full as I was in my representation of the matters in the 
commissary's department yesterday, fresh and more pow- 
erful reasons oblige me to add, that I am now convinced 
beyond a doubt, that, unless some great and capital change 
suddenly takes place in that line, this army must inevitably 
be reduced to one or other of these three things : starve, 
dissolve, or disperse in order to obtain subsistence in the 
best manner they can. Rest assured, sir, this is not an 
exaggerated picture, and that I have abundant reason to 
suppose what I say. 

Yesterday afternoon, receiving information that the 
enemy in force had left the city, and were advancing 
towards Derby with the apparent design to forage and 
draw subsistence from that part of the country, I ordered 
the troops to be in readiness, that I might give every oppo- 
sition in my power; when behold, to my great mortifica- 
tion, I was not only informed but convinced, that the men 
were unable to stir on account of provision, and that a 
dangerous mutiny, begun the night before, and which 
with difficulty was suppressed by the spirited exertions of 
some officers, was still much to be apprehended for want 
of this article. This brought forth the only commissary 
in the purchasing line in this camp; and, with him, this 
melancholy and alarming truth, that he had not a single 
hoof of any kind to slaughter, and not more than twenty- 
five barrels of flour! From hence form an opinion of our 
situation when I add that he could not tell when to expect 
any. 

All I could do, under these circumstances, was to send 
out a few light parties to watch and harass the enemy, 
whilst other parties were instantly detached different ways 
to collect, if possible, as much provision as would satisfy 

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Letters 

the present pressing wants of the soldiery. But will this 
answer? No, sir; three or four days of bad weather would 
prove our destruction. What, then, is to become of the 
army this winter? And if we are so often without pro- 
visions now, what is to become of us in the spring, when 
our force will be collected, with the aid perhaps of militia to 
take advantage of an early campaign, before the enemy can 
be reinforced? These are considerations of great magnitude, 
meriting the closest attention; and they will, when my 
own reputation is so intimately connected with the event 
as to be affected by it, justify my saying, that the present 
commissaries are by no means equal to the execution of 
the oflSce, or that the disaffection of the people is past all 
belief. The misfortune, however, does in my opinion 
proceed from both causes; and though I have been tender 
heretofore of giving my opinion, or lodging complaints, 
as the change in that department took place contrary to 
my judgment, and the consequences thereof were pre- 
dicted; yet, finding that the inactivity of the army, 
whether for want of provisions, clothes, or other essen- 
tials, is charged to my account, not only by the common 
vulgar but by those in power, it is time to speak plain in 
exculpation of myself. With truth, then, I can declare, 
that no man in my opinion ever had his measures more im- 
peded than I have, by every department of the army. 

Since the month of July we have had no assistance from 
the quartermaster-general, and to want of assistance from 
this department the commissary-general charges great part 
of his deficiency. To this I am to add, that, notwithstand- 
ing it is a standing order, and often repeated, that the 
troops shall always have two days' provisions by them, 
that they might be ready at any sudden call; yet an op- 
portunity has scarcely ever offered, of taking advantage 
of the enemy, that has not been either totally obstructed, 
or greatly impeded on this account. And this, the great 
and crying evil, is not all. The soap, vinegar, and other 

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George JVashington 

articles allowed by Congress, we see none of, nor have we 
seen them, I believe, since the Battle of Brandywine. The 
first, indeed, we have now little occasion for; few men 
having more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, 
and some none at all. In addition to which, as a proof of 
the little benefit received from a clothier-general, and as 
a further proof of the inability of an army, under the cir- 
cumstances of this, to perform the common duties of sol- 
diers, (besides a number of men confined to hospitals for 
want of shoes, and others in farmers' houses on the same 
account,) we have, by a field return this day made, no less 
than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men 
now in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and 
otherwise naked. By the same return it appears that our 
whole strength in Continental troops, including the eastern 
brigades, which have joined us since the surrender of 
General Burgoyne, exclusive of the Maryland troops sent 
to Wilmington, amounts to no more than eight thousand 
two hundred in camp fit for duty; notwithstanding which, 
and that since the 4th instant, our numbers fit for duty, 
from the hardships and exposures they have undergone, 
particularly on account of blankets (numbers having been 
obliged, and still are, to sit up all night by fires, instead of 
taking comfortable rest in a natural and common way), 
have decreased near two thousand men. 

We find gentlemen, without knowing whether the army 
was really going into winter-quarters or not (for I am sure 
no resolution of mine would warrant the remonstrance), 
reprobating the measure as much as if they thought the 
soldiers were made of stocks or stones, and equally in- 
sensible of frost and snow; and moreover, as if they con- 
ceived it easily practicable for an inferior army, under 
the disadvantages I have described ours to be, which are 
by no means exaggerated, to confine a superior one, in all 
respects well appointed and provided for a winter's cam- 
paign, within the city of Philadelphia, and to cover from 

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Letters 

depredation and waste the States of Pennsylvania and 
Jersey. But what makes this matter still more extraordi- 
nary in my eye is that these very gentlemen — who were 
well apprised of the nakedness of the troops from ocular 
demonstration, who thought their own soldiers worse clad 
than others, and who advised me near a month ago to 
postpone the execution of a plan I was about to adopt, in 
consequence of a resolve of Congress for seizing clothes, 
under strong assurances that an ample supply would be 
collected in ten days agreeably to a decree of the State 
(not one article of which, by the by, is yet come to hand) 
— should think a winter's campaign, and the covering of 
these States from the invasion of an enemy, so easy and 
practicable a business. I can assure those gentlemen, that 
it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw re- 
monstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside, than 
to occupy a cold bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, 
without clothes or blankets. However, although they 
seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed 
soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my 
soul I pity those miseries, which it is neither in my power 
to relieve nor prevent. 

It is for these reasons, therefore, that I have dwelt upon 
the subject; and it adds not a little to my other diflSculties 
and distress to find that much more is expected of me 
than is possible to be performed, and that upon the ground 
of safety and policy I am obliged to conceal the true state 
of the army from public view, and thereby expose myself 
to detraction and calumny. The honorable committee of 
Congress went from camp fully possessed of my sentiments 
respecting the establishment of this army, the necessity 
of auditors of accounts, the appointment of officers, and 
new arrangements. I have no need, therefore, to be 
prolix upon these subjects, but I refer to the committee. 
I shall add a word or two to show, first the necessity of 
some better provision for binding the officers by the tie 

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George JVashington 

of interest to the service, as no day nor scarce an hour 
passes without the offer of a resigned commission; (other- 
wise I much doubt the practicability of holding the army 
together much longer, and in this I shall probably be 
thought the more sincere, when I freely declare that I do 
not myself expect to derive the smallest benefit from any 
establishment that Congress may adopt, otherwise than 
as a member of the community at large in the good, which 
I am persuaded will result from the measure, by making 
better officers and better troops;) and, secondly, to point 
out the necessity of making the appointments and 
arrangements without loss of time. We have not more 
than three months in which to prepare a great deal of 
business. If we let these slip or waste, we shall be labor- 
ing under the same difficulties all next campaign, as we 
have been this, to rectify mistakes and bring things to 
order. 

Military arrangement, and movements in consequence, 
like the mechanism of a clock, will be imperfect and dis- 
ordered by the want of a part. In a very sensible degree 
have I experienced this, in the course of the last summer, 
several brigades having no brigadiers appointed to them 
till late, and some not at all; by which means it follows 
that an additional weight is thrown upon the shoulders of 
the commander-in-chief, to withdraw his attention from 
the great line of his duty. The gentlemen of the commit- 
tee, when they were at camp, talked of an expedient for 
adjusting these matters, which I highly approved and wish 
to see adopted : namely, that two or three members of the 
Board of War, or a committee of Congress, should repair 
immediately to camp, where the best aid can be had, and 
v/ith the commanding officer, or a committee of his ap- 
pointment, prepare and digest the most perfect plan that 
can be devised for correcting all abuses and making new 
arrangements; considering what is to be done with the 
weak and debilitated regiments, if the States to which 

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Letters 

they belong will not draft men to fill them, for as to en- 
listing soldiers it seems to me to be totally out of the ques- 
tion; together with many other things that would occur 
in the course of such a conference; and, after digesting 
matters in the best manner they can, to submit the whole 
to the ultimate determination of Congress. 

If this measure is approved, I would earnestly advise 
the immediate execution of it, and that the commissary- 
general of purchases, whom I rarely see, may be directed 
to form magazines without a moment's delay in the neigh- 
borhood of this camp, in order to secure provision for us 
in case of bad weather. The quartermaster-general ought 
also to be busy in his department. In short, there is as 
much to be done in preparing for a campaign as in the 
active part of it. Everything depends upon the prepara- 
tion that is made in the several departments, and the suc- 
cess or misfortunes of the next campaign will more than 
probably originate with our activity or supineness during 
this winter. 



149 



Addresses 

FAREWELL TO THE ARMY 

The United States in Congress assembled, after giving 
the most honorable testimony to the merits of the federal 
armies, and presenting them with the thanks of their coun- 
try for their long, eminent, and faithful services, haiving 
thought proper, by their proclamation bearing date the 
18th day of October last, to discharge such part of the 
troops as were enraged for the war, and to permit the 
officers on furloughs to retire from service, from and after 
to-morrov/; which proclamation having been communi- 
cated in the public papers for the information and govern- 
ment of all concerned, it only remains for the commander- 
in-chief to address himself once more, and that for the last 
time, to the armies of the United States (however widely 
dispersed the individuals who composed them may be), 
and to bid them an affectionate, a long farewell. 

But before the commander-in-chief takes his final leave 
of those he holds most dear, he wishes to indulge himself 
a few moments in calling to mind a slight review of the 
past. He will then take the liberty of exploring with his 
military friends their future prospects, of advising the 
general line of conduct which, in his opinion, ought to be 
pursued; and he will conclude the address by expressing 
the obligations he feels himself under for the spirited and 
able assistance he has experienced from them, in the per- 
formance of an arduous office. 

A contemplation of the complete attainment (at a period 
earlier than could have been expected) of the object for 
which we contended against so formidable a power, cannot 
but inspire us with astonishment and gratitude. The dis- 

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Addresses 

advantageous circumstances on our part, under which the 
war was undertaken, can never be forgotten. The singular 
interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition were 
such as could scarcely escape the attention of the most 
unobserving; while the unparalleled perseverance of the 
armies of the United States, through almost every possible 
suffering and discouragement for the space of eight long 
years, was little short of a standing miracle. 

It is not the meaning nor within the compass of this 
address to detail the hardships peculiarly incident to our 
service, or to describe the distresses which in several in- 
stances have resulted from the extremes of hunger and 
nakedness, combined with the rigors of an inclement sea- 
son; nor is it necessary to dwell on the dark side of our 
past affairs. Every American oflBcer and soldier must 
now console himself for any unpleasant circumstances 
which may have occurred, by a recollection of the un- 
common scenes of which he has been called to act no 
inglorious part, and the astonishing events of which he 
has been a witness; events which have seldom, if ever 
before, taken place on the stage of human action nor can 
they probably ever happen again. For who has before 
seen a disciplined army formed at once from such raw 
materials.'' Who, that was not a witness, could imagine, 
that the most violent local prejudices would cease so soon; 
and that men, who came from the different parts of the 
continent, strongly disposed by the habits of education 
to despise and quarrel with each other, would instantly 
become but one patriotic band of brothers? Or who, 
that was not on the spot, can trace the steps by which 
such a wonderful revolution has been effected, and such 
a glorious period put to all our warlike toils? 

It is universally acknowledged that the enlarged pros- 
pects of happiness, opened by the confirmation of our 
independence and sovereignty, almost exceed the power 
of description. And shall not the brave men, who have 

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George JVashington 

contributed so essentially to these inestimable acquisi- 
tions, retiring victorious from tbe field of war to the 
field of agriculture, participate in all the blessings which 
have been obtained? In such a republic, who will ex- 
clude them from the rights of citizens, and the fruits of 
their labor? In such a country, so happily circumstanced, 
the pursuits of commerce and the cultivation of the soil 
will unfold to industry the certain road to competence. 
To those hardy soldiers, who are actuated by the spirit 
of adventure, the fisheries will afford ample and profitable 
employment; and the extensive and fertile regions of the 
West will yield a most happy asylum to those who, fond 
of domestic enjoyment, are seeking for personal indepen- 
dence. Nor is it possible to conceive that any one of the 
United States will prefer a national bankruptcy, and a 
dissolution of the Union, to a compliance with the requi- 
sitions of Congress, and the payment of its just debts; 
so that the officers and soldiers may expect considerable 
assistance, in recommending their civil occupations, from 
the sums due to them from the public, which must and 
will most inevitably be paid. 

In order to effect this desirable purpose, and to remove 
the prejudices which may have taken possession of the 
minds of any of the good people of the States, it is ear- 
nestly recommended to all the troops that, with strong 
attachments to the Union, they should carry with them 
into civil society the most conciliating dispositions, and 
that they should prove themselves not less virtuous 
and useful as citizens than they have been persevering 
and victorious as soldiers. What though there should be 
some envious individuals, who are unwilling to pay the 
debt the public has contracted, or to yield the tribute 
due to merit; yet let such unworthy treatment produce 
no invectives, nor any instance of intemperate conduct. 
Let it be remembered that the unbiased voice of the free 
citizens of the United States has promised the just re- 

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Addresses 

ward and given the merited applause. Let it be known 
and remembered that the reputation of the federal armies 
is established beyond the reach of malevolence; and let 
a consciousness of their achievements and fame still in- 
cite the men who composed them to honorable actions; 
under the persuasion that the private virtues of economy, 
prudence and industry will not be less amiable in civil 
life than the more splendid qualities of valor, persever- 
ance and enterprise were in the field. Every one may 
rest assured that much, very much of the future happi- 
ness of the officers and men will depend upon the wise 
and manly conduct which shall be adopted by them when 
they are mingled with the great body of the community. 
And although the general has so frequently given it as 
his opinion in the most public and explicit manner that, 
unless the principles of the federal government were prop- 
erly supported, and the powers of the Union increased, 
the honor, dignity and justice of the nation would be 
lost forever; yet he cannot help repeating on this occa- 
sion so interesting a sentiment, and leaving it as his last 
injunction to every officer and every soldier, who may 
view the subject in the same serious point of light, to add 
his best endeavors to those of his worthy fellow-citizens 
toward effecting these great and valuable purposes, on 
which our very existence as a nation so materially 
depends. 

The commander-in-chief conceives little is now want- 
ing to enable the soldiers to change the military char- 
acter into that of the citizen, but that steady and decent 
tenor of behavior which has generally distinguished, not 
only the army under his immediate command, but the 
different detachments and separate armies through the 
course of the war. From their good sense and prudence 
he anticipates the happiest consequences, and while he 
congratulates them on the glorious occasion which renders 
their services in the field no longer necessary, he wishes 

153 



George Washington 

to express the strong obligations he feels himself under 
for the assistance he has received from every class and 
in every instance. He presents his thanks in the most 
serious and affectionate manner to the general officers, 
as well for their counsel on many interesting occasions, 
as for their ardor in promoting the success of the plans 
he had adopted; to the commandants of regiments and 
corps, and to the other officers, for their great zeal and 
attention in carrying his orders promptly into execution; 
to the staff, for their alacrity and exactness in performing 
the duties of their several departments; and to the 
non-commissioned officers and private soldiers, for their 
extraordinary patience and suffering, as well as their in- 
vincible fortitude in action. To the various branches of 
the army the General takes this last and solemn oppor- 
tunity of professing his inviolable attachment and friend- 
ship. He wishes more than bare professions were in his 
power; that he were really able to be useful to them all 
in future life. He flatters himself, however, they will 
do him the justice to believe, that whatever could with 
propriety be attempted by him has been done. 

And being now to conclude these his last public orders, 
to take his ultimate leave in a short time of the military 
character, and to bid a final adieu to the armies he has 
so long had the honor to command, he can only again 
offer in their behalf his recommendations to their grateful 
country, and his prayers to the God of armies. May 
ample justice be done them here, and may the choicest 
of Heaven's favors, both here and hereafter, attend those 
who, under the Divine auspices, have secured innumer- 
able blessings for others. With these wishes and his 
benediction, the commander-in-chief is about to retire 
from service. The curtain of separation will soon be 
drawn, and the military scene to him will be closed 
forever. 



154 



Addresses 



FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF 
THE UNITED STATES 

Washington was chosen first President of the United States, and at the 
end of his term he was again chosen. VvTaen his second term drew near 
its close, he refused to be a candidate for reelection, and six months before 
he was to leave the President's chair he issued the following farewell 
address, September 17, 1796. 

Friends and Fellow-citizens: 

The period for a new election of a citizen, to admin- 
ister the executive government of the United States, being 
not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your 
thoughts must be employed in designating the person 
who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears 
to me proper, specially as it may conduce to a more dis- 
tinct expression of the public voice, that I should now 
apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline 
being considered among the number of those out of whom 
a choice is to be made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to 
be assured, that this resolution has not been taken with- 
out a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining 
to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his coun- 
try; and that, in withdrawing the tender of service, which 
silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by 
no diminution of zeal for your future interest; no defi- 
ciency of grateful respect for your past kindness; but am 
supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible 
with both. 

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the 
office to which your suffrages have twice called me, have 
been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of 
duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your 
desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been 
much earlier in my power, consistently with motives 
which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that 

155 



George JVashington 

retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. 
The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to 
the last election, had even led to the preparation of an 
address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on 
tlip then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs 
with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons 
entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as 
well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclina- 
tion incompatible with the sentiment of duty or pro- 
priety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be 
retained for my services, that, in the present circum- 
stances of our country, you will not disapprove my deter- 
mination to retire. 

The impressions with which I first undertook the ar- 
duous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In 
the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have 
with good intentions contributed toward the organization 
and administration of the government the best exertions 
of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not un- 
conscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifi- 
cations, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in 
the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffi- 
dence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of 
years admonishes me more and more that the shade of 
retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. 
Satisfied that, if any circumstances have given peculiar 
value to my services, they were temporary, I have the 
consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence 
invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not 
forbid it. 

In looking forward to the moment which is intended 
to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do 
not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of 
that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country 
for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more 

156 



Addresses 

for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported 
me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of 
manifesting my inviolable attachment by services faithful 
and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. 
If benefits have resulted to our country from these serv- 
ices, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as 
an instructive example in our annals, that under circum- 
stances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, 
were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes du- 
bious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situa- 
tions in which not unfrequently want of success has coun- 
tenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your 
support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guar- 
anty of the plans by which they were effected. Pro- 
foundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with 
me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows 
that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of 
its ^beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection 
may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the 
work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that 
its administration in every department may be stamped 
with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of 
the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, 
may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and 
so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them 
the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affec- 
tion, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger 
to it. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for 
your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the 
apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge 
me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn 
contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent re- 
view, some sentiments, which are the result of much re- 
flection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which 
appear to me all-important to the permanency of your 

157 



George Washington 

felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the 
more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinter- 
ested warnings of a parting friend, who can i>ossibly have 
no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as 
an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my 
sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion. 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament 
of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to 
fortify or confirm the attachment. 

The unity of government, which constitutes you one 
people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is 
a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the 
support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; 
of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty 
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee 
that from different causes and from different quarters 
much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to 
weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this 
is the point in your political fortress against which the 
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most 
constantly and actively (though often covertly and in- 
sidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should 
properly estimate the immense value of your national 
union to your collective and individual happiness; that 
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable 
attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and 
speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety 
and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jealous 
anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a 
suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and 
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every 
attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the 
rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now Hnk to- 
gether the various parts. 

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and 
interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common coun- 

158 



Addresses 

try, that country has a right to concentrate your affec- 
tions. The name of America, which belongs to you, in 
your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride 
of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from 
local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, 
you have the same religion, manners, habits, and polit- 
ical principles. You have in a common cause fought 
and triumphed together; the independence and liberty 
you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, 
of common dangers, sufferings and successes. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they ad- 
dress themselves to your sensibility, are greatly out- 
weighed by those which apply more immediately to your 
interest. Here every portion of our country finds the 
most commanding motives for carefully guarding and 
preserving the union of the whole. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the 
South, protected by the equal laws of a common govern- 
ment, finds in the productions of the latter great addi- 
tional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise 
and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The 
South in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency 
of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce 
expand. Turning partly into its own channels the sea- 
men of the North, it finds its particular navigation in- 
vigorated; and, while it contributes in different ways 
to nourish and increase the general mass of the national 
navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a mari- 
time strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The 
East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, 
and in the progressive improvement of interior communi- 
cations by land and water will more and more find, a 
valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from 
abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives 
from the East supplies requisite to its growth and com- 
fort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it 

159 



George Washington 

must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispen- 
sable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influ- 
ence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic 
side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community 
of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the 
West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived 
from its own separate strength or from an apostate and 
unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be 
intrinsically precarious. 

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an 
immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts 
combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means 
and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportion- 
ably greater security from external danger, a less fre- 
quent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and, 
what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union 
an exemption from those broils and wars between them- 
selves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries 
not tied together by the same governments, which their 
own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but 
which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and in- 
trigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, 
they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown mili- 
tary establishments which, under any form of govern- 
ment, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In 
this sense it is that your union ought to be considered 
as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the 
one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. 

These considerations speak a persuasive language to 
every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the con- 
tinuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic 
desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government 
can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. 
To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. 
We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of 
the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for 
the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to 
the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experi- 
ment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, 

160 



Addresses 

affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall 
not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will 
always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who 
in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our 
Union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern, that any 
ground should have been furnished for characterizing 
parties by geographical discriminations Northern and 
Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men 
may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real dif- 
ference of local interests and views. One of the expedi- 
ents of party to acquire influence, within particular dis- 
tricts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other 
districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against 
the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these 
misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each 
other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal 
affection. The inhabitants of our western country have 
lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, 
in the negotiation by the executive, and in the unani- 
mous ratification by the senate, of the treaty with Spain, 
and in the universal satisfaction at that event through- 
out the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded 
were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy 
in the general government and in the Atlantic States 
unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; 
they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, 
that with Great Britain and that with Spain, which secure 
\^ them everything they could desire, in respect to our 
foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. 
Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation 
of these advantages on the Union by which they were 
procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those 
advisers if such there are, who would sever them from 
their brethren and connect them with aliens? 

To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a gov- 
ernment for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, 
however strict, between the parts can be an adequate 
substitute; they must inevitably experience the infrac- 
tions and interruptions which all alliances in all times 

161 



George TVashington 

have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, 
you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption 
of a constitution of government better calculated than 
your former for an intimate union, and lor the efficacious 
management of your common concerns. This govern- 
ment, the offspring of oiu- own choice, uninfluenced and 
unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature 
deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the dis- 
tribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and 
containing within itself a provision for its own amend- 
ment, has a just claim to your confidence and your sup- 
port. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, 
acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the 
fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our 
political systems is the right of the people to make and 
to alter their constitutions of government. But the con- 
stitution which at any time exists, till changed by an 
explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly 
obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and 
the right of the people to establish government presup- 
poses the duty of every individual to obey the established 
government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all com- 
binations and associations, under whatever plausible char- 
acter, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, 
or awe the regular deliberation and action of the con- 
stituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental 
principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize 
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; 
to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, 
the will of a party, often a small but artful and enter- 
prising minority of the community; and, according to 
the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the 
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and 
incongruous projects of fashion, rather than the organs 
of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common 
councils, and modified by mutual interests. 

However combinations or associations of the abo/e 
description may now and then answer popular ends, they 
are likely, in the course of time and things, to become 

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potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprin- 
cipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the 
people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of govern- 
ment; destroying afterwards the very engines which have 
lifted them to unjust dominion. 

Towards the preservation of your government, and the 
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, 
not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppo- 
sitions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you 
resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its prin- 
ciples, however specious the pretexts. One method of 
assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitution, 
alterations, which will impair the energy of the system, 
and thus to undermine what cannot be directly over- 
thrown. In all the changes to which you may be in- 
vited, remember that time and habit are at least as 
necessary to fix the true character of governments as of 
other human institutions; that experience is the surest 
standard bj^ which to test the real tendency of the exist- 
ing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, 
upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes 
to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hy- 
pothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that, for 
the efficient management of your common interests, in a 
country so extensive as ours, a government of as much 
vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty 
is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a gov- 
ernment, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, 
its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, 
where the government is too feeble to withstand the en- 
terprises of faction, to confine each member of the society 
within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to main- 
tain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights 
of person and property. 

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties 
in the State, with particular reference to the founding of 
them on geographical discrimination. Let me now take 
a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most 
solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit 
of party, generally. 

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George Washington 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from gwx 
nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the 
human mind. It exists under different shapes in all gov- 
ernments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; 
but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest 
rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, 
sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dis- 
sension, which in different ages and countries has per- 
petrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful 
despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal 
and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries 
which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek 
security and repose in the absolute power of an indi- 
vidual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing 
faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, 
turns this disposition to the purposes of his own eleva- 
tion, on the ruins of public liberty. 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind 
(which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), 
the common and continued mischiefs of the spirit of 
party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of 
a wise people to discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the public councils, and 
enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the com- 
munity with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kin- 
dles the animosity of one part against another, foments 
occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the doors to 
foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated 
access to the government itself through the channels of 
party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one 
country are subjected to the policy and vvill of another. 

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are 
useful checks upon the administration of the government, 
and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within 
certain limits is probably true, and in governments of a 
monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, 
if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those 
of the popular character, in governments purely elective, 
it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural 

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tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of 
that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being 
constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by 
force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A 
fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance 
to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warm- 
ing, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in 
a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted 
with its administration, to confine themselves within 
their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the 
exercise of the powers of one department to encroach 
upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to con- 
solidate the powers of all the departments in one, and 
thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real 
despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and 
proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human 
heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this posi- 
tion. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise 
of political power, by dividing and distributing it into 
different depositories, and constituting each the guardian 
of the public weal against invasions by the others, has 
been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some 
of them in our country and under our own eyes. To pre- 
serve them must be as necessary as to institute them. 
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modi- 
fication of the constitutional powers be in any particular 
wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way 
which the Constitution designates. But let there be no 
change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, 
may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon 
by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent 
must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any 
partial or transient benefit which the use can at any 
time yield. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable sup- 
ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of 
patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars 
of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of 

165 



George TVashington 

men and citizens. The mere politician equally with the 
pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A vol- 
ume could not trace all their connections with "private 
and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the 
security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense 
of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the in- 
struments of investigation in courts of justice? And let 
us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can 
be maintained without religion. Whatever may be con- 
ceded to the influence of refined education on minds of 
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us 
to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion 
of religious principle. 

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a 
necessary sT)ring of popular government. The rule, in- 
deed, extends with more or less force to every species of 
free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, 
can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the 
foundation of the fabric? 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, in- 
stitutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In 
proportion as the structure of a government gives force 
to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should 
be enlightened. 

As a very important source of strength and security, 
cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, 
to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of 
expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that 
timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently 
prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoid- 
ing likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shun- 
ning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in 
time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable 
wars may have occasioned, net ungenerously throwing 
upon posterity the burden v.'hich we ourselves ought to 
bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your 
representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion 
should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance 
of their duty it is essential that you should practically 
bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there 

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Addresses 

must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be 
taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more 
or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic 
embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the 
proper objects (wliich is always a choice of difficulties), 
ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction 
of the conduct of the government in making it, and for 
a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining 
revenue which the public exigencies may at any time 
dictate. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; 
cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and mo- 
rality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy 
does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, 
enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation, to 
give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example 
of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benev- 
olence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and 
things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any 
temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady 
adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not con- 
nected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? 
The experiment, at least, is recommended by every senti- 
ment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered 
impossible by its vices? 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essen- 
tial than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against 
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, 
should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and 
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The 
nation which indulges towards another an habitual 
hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. 
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of 
which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its 
interest. Antipathy in one nation against another dis- 
poses each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay 
hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and 
intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dis- 
pute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, enven- 
omed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by 

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George Washington 

ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the gov- 
ernment, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The 
government sometimes participates in the national pro- 
pensity, and adopts through passion what reason would 
reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the na- 
tion subservient to projects of hostility instigated by 
pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. 
The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations 
has been the victim. 

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for 
another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the 
favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary 
common interest in cases where no real common interest 
exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, 
betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels 
and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or 
justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite 
nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly 
to injure the nation making the concessions, by unneces- 
sarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and 
by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, 
in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. 
And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens 
(who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility 
to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, 
without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding 
with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a 
commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable 
zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of 
ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways 
such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly 
eplightened^'and independent patriot. How many oppor- 
tunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, 
to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, 
to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attach- 
ment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful 
nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I con- 
jure you to believe me, fellow-citizens), the jealousy of 

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a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history 
and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the 
most baneful foes of republican government. But thnt 
jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes 
the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, in- 
stead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for 
one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause 
those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, 
"and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on 
the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of 
the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; 
while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confi- 
dence of the people, to surrender their interests. 

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign 
nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have 
with them as little political connection as possible. So 
far as we have already formed engagements, let them be 
fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop, 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have 
none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be en- 
gaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are 
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it 
must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial 
ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordi- 
nary combinations and collisions of her friendships or 
enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables 
us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, 
under an efficient government, the period is not far off 
when we may defy material injury from external annoy- 
ance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause 
the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be 
scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under 
the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not 
lightly hazard the giving us provocation; vfhen we may 
choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, 
shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? 
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, 
by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of 

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George JVashtngton 

Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of 
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? 

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances 
with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, 
as we are now at liberty to Jo it; for let me not be under- 
stood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing en- 
gagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public 
than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best 
policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be 
observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it 
is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable es- 
tablishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may 
safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary 
emergencies. 

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are rec- 
ommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even 
our commercial policy should hold an equal and impar- 
tial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors 
or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; 
diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of 
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers 
so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to de- 
fine the rights of our merchants, and to enable the gov- 
ernment to support them, conventional rules of inter- 
course, the best that present circumstances and mutual 
opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from 
time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and cir- 
cumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view, that 
it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors 
from another; that it must pay v/ith a portion of its 
independence for whatever it may accept under that char- 
acter; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in 
the condition of having given equivalents for nominal 
favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for 
not giving more. There can be no greater error than to 
expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. 
It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a 
just pride ought to discard. 
^In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of 

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Addresses 

an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will 
make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; 
that they will control the usual current of the passions, 
or prevent our nation from running the coursfe which has 
hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may 
even flatter myself that they may be productive of some 
partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now 
and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to 
warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard 
against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope 
will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your wel- 
fare, by which they have been dictated. 

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have 
been guided by the principles which have been delineated, 
the public records and other evidences of my conduct 
must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the 
assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least 
believed myself to be guided by them. 

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my 
proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index of 
my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that 
of your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the 
spirit of that measure has continually governed me, un- 
influenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it. 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best 
lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our coun- 
try, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right 
to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a 
neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far 
as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with modera- 
tion, perseverance and firmness. 

The considerations which respect the right to hold this 
conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. 
I will only observe, that, according to my understanding 
of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by 
any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted 
by all. 

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, 
without anything more, from the obligation which jus- 
tice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in 

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George JVashington 

which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations 
of peace and amity towards other nations. 

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct 
will best be referred to your own reflections and expe- 
rience. With me a predominant motive has been to en- 
deavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature 
its yet recent institutions, and to progress without inter- 
ruption to that degree of strength and consistency which 
is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command 
of its own fortunes. 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administra- 
tion, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am never- 
theless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable 
thatfl may have committed many errors. Whatever they 
may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or 
mitigate the evils to vv^hich they may tend. I shall also 
carry with me the hope that my country will never cease 
to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty -five 
years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright 
zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned 
to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so nat- 
ural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself 
and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate 
with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which 1 promise 
myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of 
partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign 
influence of good laws under a free government, the ever 
favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I 
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 

George Washington. 



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